The Historical Presidency : “An Ethnic Presence in the White House?”: Ethnicity, Identity Politics, and the Presidency in the 1970s

Merton, Joe

Abstract

This paper excavates the relationship between the presidency and an emergent white, European ‘ethnic’ identity politics during the 1970s. Rather than a response to cultural drift or backlash politics, presidential efforts to harness ‘ethnic’ identity politics reflected a shifting institutional context. Yet despite establishing the White House as a critical centre of the new politics and devising policy and political responses to it, the attentions of the presidency were not always propitious. Instead, the presidency’s efforts profoundly influenced the terms by which ethnic politics was received politically, with destructive consequences for this politics’ potential political incorporation, its interactions with other advocacy groups, and its long-term future. Historians seeking to explain the fate of the ‘ethnic’ moment of the 1970s should thus pay closer attention to the presidency as a contributor to both its rise and demise.

Citation

Merton, J. (2020). The Historical Presidency : “An Ethnic Presence in the White House?”: Ethnicity, Identity Politics, and the Presidency in the 1970s. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 50(2), 418-435. https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12580

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 10, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Aug 17, 2019
• Publication Date: 2020-06
• Deposit Date: Apr 11, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 18, 2021
• Journal: Presidential Studies Quarterly
• Print ISSN: 0360-4918
• Electronic ISSN: 1741-5705
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 50
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 418-435
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12580
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1780428
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/psq.12580
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Merton, J. (2019), The Historical Presidency: “An Ethnic Presence in the White House?”: Ethnicity, Identity Politics, and the Presidency in the 1970s. Presidential Studies Quarterly, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/psq.12580; . This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.