Stating the Family

“A timely work that will continue to advance the conversations necessary for understanding the multifaceted historical significance of the 2020 political season.”—Choice

“For far too long political scientists have ignored the role that the family plays in constituting political power. This pathbreaking collection of essays centralizes the family, moving across political time and space to demonstrate that the modern family is not natural and that the state’s support of it is not neutral. The result is a fascinating rethinking of the way that the state and family work together to produce and undermine power and freedom. Must reading for anyone interested in understanding how political life is being ordered and transformed in our distinctive political time.”—Susan Burgess, distinguished professor of Political Science, Ohio University

“Julie Novkov and Carol Nackenoff introduce and present a provocative, diverse, and richly researched set of readings on the family in Stating the Family: New Directions in the Study of American Politics. Their edited volume explores the direct and indirect roles that policymakers—presidential administrations, executive agencies, members of Congress, and the courts—have had in defining, constituting, and prioritizing families from antebellum Louisiana to the present. The chapters bring welcome and overdue attention to the political construction of ‘family’: it is not, and never was, solely ‘private,’ but, as the contributors show, inevitably implicates the state with respect to economics, gender roles, and political status.”—Bartholomew Sparrow, professor of government, University of Texas at Austin

“It is surprising that political science has not paid more attention to the family given its many roles, including as a subject of government policy, as a determinant of wealth and power, and as an educator of future citizens. Novkov and Nackenoff’s cutting-edge book goes a long way in filling that gap by asking an impressive group of scholars to write about the practice and theory of the family as both an essential and contested unit of our polity. Going forward, anyone who wants to seriously grapple with the family from the perspective of politics and policy will have to take this rich collection of thought-provoking essays into account.”—Carlos A. Ball, author of The Right to Be Parents and Same-Sex Marriage and Children