Impossible Democracy

Noel A. Cazenave is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut and coauthor (with Kenneth J. Neubeck) of the award-winning Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card Against America's Poor.

"…[a] compelling, ambitious, and thought-provoking book … Cazenave's analysis of CAP is a fresh and important testament to the complexity of social programs and the many challenges that lie ahead in efforts to advance participatory democracy." — Social Service Review"…provides a valuable and timely service in correcting exaggeratedly harsh criticisms of community action programs." — American Journal of Sociology"…provide[s] a picture of the recent American past that challenges current popular and political, if not scholarly, understandings of the first and only time in history Americans sought an end to poverty … [and] reassert[s] the role of politics and the state in dealing with economic forces and developments, a welcome reassertion in an era of increasing economic insecurity and globalization." — Journal of Social History"After dissecting the politicking, particularly in the New York state and mayoral contexts, Cazenave ends up having demonstrated pragmatically how community action really became embedded successfully in community settings nationwide defying pacification attempts." — Myers Book Commentary"…breaks new ground in political sociology, democratic theory, the sociology of organizations, and public administration." — CHOICE"Noel Cazenave argues persuasively that these much-maligned programs, forged in the vortex of powerful social movements, were in fact a remarkable political experiment, with lasting effects that enlarged American democracy. This book will change the way we view the 1960s." — Frances Fox Piven, author of Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America"Cazenave brings to this subject a fresh approach as an historical sociologist as much concerned with the top-down as the bottom-up perspective on the programs' validity and consequences. He takes New York City as the focus of his analysis but teases out the larger meaning of his local case. And he challenges the failure consensus, a stand that should revive interest in what many see as a closed chapter in LBJ's War on Poverty." — Zane L. Miller, author of Visions of Place: The City, Neighborhoods, Suburbs, and Cincinnati's Clifton, 1850–2000"Interesting and compelling, this new take on the topic addresses questions of public policy and science and democracy that have become central in several allied fields, such as policy studies, political science, sociology, and social work." — Alan F. Zundel, author of Declarations of Dependency: The Civic Republican Tradition in U.S. Poverty Policy

• List of IllustrationsPrefaceIntroductionElite Competition, Community Action, and Democratic Theory in the Expansion of American Democracy1. Professional Turf Battles in the Planning of the Mobilization for Youth Project2. Sufficiently Vague: The Ford Foundation, Social Scientists, and Their Conceptualizations of Community Action3. Community Action and Congressional Intent: The President’s Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime4. The Mobilization for Youth Proposal and the Project’s Dispute with Area School Principals5. Challenging "Social Work Colonialism" in Harlem: The Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited and Associated Community Teams Proposals and Early Project Disputes6. The HARYOU-ACT and Mobilization for Youth Project Crises of 19647. Black Protest and White Backlash: The Rise and Fall of Community Action in the War on PovertyConclusionThe Legacy of Impossible DemocracyMethodological AppendixNotesIndex