adam hilton
Visiting Lecturer of Politics
Mount Holyoke College
Biography
Examining American political development through the lens of parties, movements, and political entrepreneurs
As of July 2019, I will be an assistant professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where I have been a visiting lecturer since 2016. I have a PhD from the Department of Political Science at York University, Toronto. My current research focuses on the intersection between institutional and non-institutional forms of politics, specifically the relationship between movements, interest groups, and political parties, and the agency of political entrepreneurs in transforming them. My work falls within the American Political Development (APD) approach and cross-examines the "exceptional" features of US politics in historical-comparative perspective. My current book project, under contract with Penn Press, examines the paradoxical development of the Democratic Party's ideology and organization since the end of the 1960s.
Book Project
From New Deal to Neoliberalism: The Democratic Party in the Age of Inequality
Description
My book, From New Deal to Neoliberalism: The Democratic Party in the Age of Inequality (University of Pennsylvania Press), examines the paradox of modern Democratic liberalism’s embrace of greater civic equality while simultaneously retreating from a redistributional policy agenda to address rising economic inequality. This development, I argue, is the result of the emergence of what I call the advocacy party, a new form of party organization that is institutionally hollow and ideologically shaped by a loose network of contending advocacy groups. Far from constituting a pluralist heaven, however, the advocacy party, while very successful in advancing a progressive agenda for civic equality, fails to adequately represent their poorest and most marginalized constituents. As a result, the Democratic Party has become home to a brand of progressive neoliberalism, marrying meaningful victories for out-group claims for full civic status and recognition with pro-growth, market-friendly social and economic policies. My book traces the emergence and consolidation of the advocacy party from the protracted conflicts between 1960s social movement activists and their intraparty opponents in the waning days of the New Deal order. The terms on which this conflict was resolved left the Democratic Party organizationally hollowed out, unable to control its nomination process and open to greater movement and interest group influence at the grassroots.
Publications and media
Peer-Edited and Scholarly Publications
Public Scholarship
“Bernie and the Search for New Politics,” Jacobin Magazine, 24 June 2015.
Works in Progress
Teaching
Mount Holyoke College
July 2016 - Present
Visiting Lecturer: American Politics; 2016 Election in Real Time; Parties and Movements in American Politics; US Elections; American Political Development; Why Is There No Socialism in the United States?
York University, Toronto
September 2010 - April 2016
Course Director: Race and Inequality in the Postwar American City
Teaching Assistant: The Future of Work; Classics in Western Political Thought; Canadian Political Economy
Contact
Adam Hilton, Visiting Lecturer in Politics, Mount Holyoke College
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