The State’s Relations: What the Institution of Family Tells Us about Governance

• Date: 01 March 2011
• Author: Kathleen S. Sullivan,Patricia Strach
• Published date: 01 March 2011
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912909349626
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

64(1) 94 –106

© 2011 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912909349626

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The State’s Relations: What the

Institution of Family Tells Us

about Governance

Patricia Strach1 and Kathleen S. Sullivan2

Abstract

The authors examine family as an institution of governance in American welfare provision in nineteenth-century poor

laws and the twenty-first-century earned income tax credit. Their study demonstrates family’s important role achieving

public policy aims, illustrates the extent to which governments have relied on nongovernmental actors, describes the

tools they use , and shows how citizens’ relationship to the state is translated back through nongovernmental institutions.

Called upon in the task of governing, family—the hallmark of the private sphere—illustrates the mechanisms that

governments use and the extent of governing authority necessary to get actors to comply with policy aims.

Keywords

governance, welfare policy, institutions, family

The job of governments is to govern—to do the work

associated with carrying out public policy. To combat

criminal behavior, state, local, and federal governments

erect an agency to house police, and those police are the

agents that directly enforce criminal law. But they do not

do this work alone (Peters and Pierre 1998; Rhodes

1996). State governments directly contract out prison ser-

vices to for-profit providers, and governments indirectly

tap other professionals to aid in their job of enforcing

criminal law. For example, doctors are required by law to

report drug abuse, while teachers are required to report

child abuse. Though the enlistment of direct contracting

is familiar and extending it to other actors who work in

civic positions is not too far a stretch, we may not expect

to see the same types of actions closer to home in the very

fabric of our personal lives. Yet, parents are not immune

from the same instrumentalism when they are counted on

to police families in the logic of governing through crime

(Simon 2007) or as “chief law enforcers” in graduated

driver licensing laws, which extend the probationary

period for teen drivers and restrict the hours and number

of passengers in the car (Hirshey 2007).

Nongovernmental actors are routinely enlisted to play

roles as bureaucratic agents, the key administrators in

scores of policies. Medicare directly contracts most of its

paperwork processing to third-party providers. More

indirectly, hospitals not only provide care for low-income

or indigent clients but are an important means by which

low-income Americans become enrolled in Medicaid and

state children’s health insurance programs (Patterson and

Cox 2001). Public and nonprofit schools run the federally

subsidized National School Lunch Program in which

schools are reimbursed for providing free or reduced cost

meals that meet federal guidelines to eligible childre n. In

addition, parents are fundamental in the success of

school voucher programs. William Howell (2004, 225)

explains, “Families must locate an appropriate private

school for their child, apply for admission, find transpor-

tation between school and home, and supplement the

vouchers with private funds.” At bottom, governments

“govern” with the help of a host of institutions: directly

by contracting with third-party providers for specific ser-

vices (for-profit prisons, Medicare paperwork); indirectly

by marshalling the institutional resources of actors whose

aims are other than the particular governmental objective

(doctors and teachers enforcing criminal law and schools

and hospitals administering public programs); and “pri-

vately” through relationships that are—and seem—beyond

the purview of public policy making.

These examples lay bare the difference between theo-

ries of how governing works and the actual practice it

entails. Although it is apparent that governing relies on

a score of nongovernmental agents, scholars neglect

the entire range of institutions that policy makers may

enlist to carry out policy goals. Hence, scholarship to

1University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, USA

2Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA

Corresponding Author:

Kathleen S. Sullivan, Department of Political Science, Ohio University,

Bentley Annex 266, Athens, OH 45701

E-mail: sullivak@ohio.edu