King, Desmond (1999) ‘The Racial Bureaucracy: African Americans and the Federal Government in the Era of Segregated Race Relations’, Governance, 12 (4), 345-77
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Racial bureaucracy in the civil service - one group of employees placed in a subordinate position to the others both formally and informally. Physical working conditions and daily routines were constructed around the segregation of one group of employees because of their race, and advancement and promotion was delimited by race. Between the 1890s and 1945 in the US.
(347) State theory and the racial bureaucracy
Neither version (theory) was satisfactory at explaining how segregation was introduced into Federal government.
The local racial state thesis: Rueschemeyer Stephens and Stephens (1992) - emphasis on the decentralised character of the state. This allowed the South to continue to exclude blacks totally. But - segregationist practices were followed in the North as well.
(348)
The weak state thesis: (e.g. Krasner 1978; Nettl 1968; Skocpol 1985; Skowronek 1982)
- but for African Americans, the state has often appeared as a strong institution whether a source of oppression, or as an institution willing to thwart local racism.
The dichotomy between strong and weak states may be overdrawn in the literature.
State capacities are often dynamic in nature - party political and electoral calculations are crucial in the role that the federal govt adopts.
(349)
Apparent weakness or strength of the state was not an immutable institutional feature.
In the mid-1950s after the Brown decision and findings from Truman's investigative committees - USDJ officials became instruments through which civil rights were realised (Graham 1990).
(350) Building the racial bureaucracy
(364) Discrimination Under Segregation
New Deal programmes were established in 1932 to provide public relief and employment for all Americans. Many of these programmes were segregated.
(368) Conclusion
Multiple traditions approach to the formation of American political values - e.g. contradiction of the "separate but equal" mantra with the Plessy judgement.
