All Outputs (13)

The Guardian Angels: crime, citizenship, and “popular neoliberalism” in crisis-era New York City (2025)
Journal Article
MERTON, J. (in press). The Guardian Angels: crime, citizenship, and “popular neoliberalism” in crisis-era New York City. Journal of Social History,

Recent historical scholarship has begun to explore the agency of grassroots actors in the ascent of neoliberalism in late twentieth century New York, uncovering a history of neoliberalism “from the bottom up”. This article builds upon this scholarshi... Read More about The Guardian Angels: crime, citizenship, and “popular neoliberalism” in crisis-era New York City.

Conflict or Consensus? The Politicization of Law and Order in the United States since 1960 (2024)
Book Chapter
Merton, J. (2024). Conflict or Consensus? The Politicization of Law and Order in the United States since 1960. In J. Campbell, & V. Miller (Eds.), The Routledge History of Crime in America (459-473). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003300151-37

This chapter provides a comprehensive survey of the history and historiography of “law and order” politics since the 1960s. Dismissing the significance of rising crime rates alone in explaining crime's politicization during the 1960s, it explores alt... Read More about Conflict or Consensus? The Politicization of Law and Order in the United States since 1960.

Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Getting Tough: Welfare and Imprisonment in 1970s America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017, $35.00). Pp. 312. ISBN978 0 6911 7452 5. (2019)
Journal Article
Merton, J. (2019). Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, Getting Tough: Welfare and Imprisonment in 1970s America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017, $35.00). Pp. 312. ISBN978 0 6911 7452 5. Journal of American Studies, 53(4), 1076-1078. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875819001257

The Historical Presidency : “An Ethnic Presence in the White House?”: Ethnicity, Identity Politics, and the Presidency in the 1970s (2019)
Journal Article
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

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

Reviewed work: Creating the new right ethnic in 1970s America: the intersection of anger and nostalgia. By Richard Moss. Lanham, MD: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017 (2018)
Journal Article
Merton, J. (2018). Reviewed work: Creating the new right ethnic in 1970s America: the intersection of anger and nostalgia. By Richard Moss. Lanham, MD: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017. Journal of American Ethnic History, 38(1), 112-114

Remaking the Rust Belt: the postindustrial transformation of North America by Tracy Neumann. University of Pennsylvania Press. 2016 (2018)
Journal Article
Merton, J. (2018). Remaking the Rust Belt: the postindustrial transformation of North America by Tracy Neumann. University of Pennsylvania Press. 2016. History, 103(355), https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229X.12607

John Lindsay, the Association for a Better New York, and the privatization of New York City, 1969-1973 (2018)
Journal Article
Merton, J. (2019). John Lindsay, the Association for a Better New York, and the privatization of New York City, 1969-1973. Journal of Urban History, 45(3), 557-577. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144218765465

Focusing on the collaboration between Mayor John Lindsay and business advocacy group the Association for a Better New York (ABNY), this article illustrates the utility of public and elite anxieties over street crime in legitimizing new, privatized mo... Read More about John Lindsay, the Association for a Better New York, and the privatization of New York City, 1969-1973.

Creating the new right ethnic in 1970s America: the intersection of anger and nostalgia, by Richard Moss, Teaneck, N.J., Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017 (2017)
Journal Article
Merton, J. (2017). Creating the new right ethnic in 1970s America: the intersection of anger and nostalgia, by Richard Moss, Teaneck, N.J., Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017. Social History, 43(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/03071022.2017.1397374

Ralph J. Perk, the “New ethnicity”, and the making of urban ethnic republicans (2017)
Journal Article
Merton, J. (2019). Ralph J. Perk, the “New ethnicity”, and the making of urban ethnic republicans. Journal of American Studies, 53(2), 449-477. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875817001803

Historians seeking to explain the late twentieth century rightward shift of urban ethnic whites have tended to ignore the shifting meaning and content of white ethnic identity in this transition, and the utility of these changes to conservative polit... Read More about Ralph J. Perk, the “New ethnicity”, and the making of urban ethnic republicans.

"I don't believe in a fun city; I believe in a safe city": fear of crime and the crisis of expertise in New York City (2016)
Journal Article
Merton, J. (2017). "I don't believe in a fun city; I believe in a safe city": fear of crime and the crisis of expertise in New York City. Journal of Policy History, 29(1), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0898030616000373

Kenneth Osgood and Derrick E. White (eds.), Winning while losing: civil rights, the conservative movement and the presidency from Nixon to Obama (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014, $79.95. Pp. 304; 978-0-8130-4908-3) (2014)
Journal Article
Merton, J. (in press). Kenneth Osgood and Derrick E. White (eds.), Winning while losing: civil rights, the conservative movement and the presidency from Nixon to Obama (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014, $79.95. Pp. 304; 978-0-8130-4908-3). Journal of American Studies, 48(4), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875814001522

"The Republican Party Is Truly the Party of the ‘Open Door’”: Ethnic Americans and the Republican Party in the 1970s (2013)
Book Chapter
Merton, J. (2013). "The Republican Party Is Truly the Party of the ‘Open Door’”: Ethnic Americans and the Republican Party in the 1970s. In R. Mason, & I. Morgan (Eds.), Seeking a New Majority: The Republican Party and American Politics, 1960-1980 (57-75). Vanderbilt University Press

Rethinking the politics of white ethnicity in 1970s America (2012)
Journal Article
MERTON, J. (2012). Rethinking the politics of white ethnicity in 1970s America. Historical Journal, 55(3), 731-756. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x1200026x

Historians have tended to characterize the ‘white ethnic’ identity politics of the 1970s in the United States as a significant feature of the conservative counterrevolution, especially the rise of populist racial conservatism and its splintering of t... Read More about Rethinking the politics of white ethnicity in 1970s America.