Anti-Poverty Measures in America: Scientism and Other Obstacles

Anti-Poverty Measures in America brings together a remarkable collection of essays in two groups. The first group consists of papers dealing with the inhibiting effects of scientism-an over-dependence on scientific methodology that is prevalent in the social sciences, particularly in political science. Employing the methods of science is vital where appropriate, but other approaches often will lead to useful insights as well, some of which may be essential. Ignoring them has deleterious effects, such as discouraging the obligation to "speak truth to power." The second group presents papers dealing with other obstacles to anti-poverty legislation in the United States.

Papers in both groups originated as presentations during annual meetings of the American Political Science Association at panels of the APSA's Caucus on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy; the first group from the San Francisco meeting in 2017, and the second from the 2018 meeting in Boston. All were subsequently published in the journal related to the Caucus: Poverty and Public Policy, sponsored by the Policy Studies Organization. Recognizing their value, the PSO is pleased to present these essays to the public in this volume.

The Editors:
Max J. Skidmore is University of Missouri Curators' Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He has been Distinguished Fulbright Lecturer to India (where he was CEO of the American Studies Research Centre), and Senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Hong Kong (where he was elected to chair the Board of American Studies). His publications include scores of articles and book chapters, and more than two dozen books. His major emphases are American government and political history, presidents and the presidency, social legislation (especially Social Security), and ideologies and American political thought. His Ph.D. is from the University of Minnesota.

Biko Koenig is Assistant Professor of Government & Public Policy at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. Trained in ethnographic, interview based, and survey research methods, his research approach is grounded in qualitative, fieldwork based, and interpretive approaches to problem solving. His ongoing research involves labor-community coalitions that focus on low income workers and public policy.