Title: Sean Gailmard | Agents of Empire: English Imperial Governance and the Making of American Political Institutions
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How did the core institutions of American government emerge and evolve? What political commitments are embedded in the foundation of these institutions? Drawing on his new book Agents of Empire, Sean Gailmard traces these questions to English colonial governance in North America. He argues that colonization required the English crown to delegate state functions to agents on the ground—first companies and proprietors; then state officials—but thereby introduced tensions between the interests of the crown and its agents of colonization. The study analyzes how colonial institutions emerged from the crown’s strategic problems of managing these tensions, and ultimately its attempts to increase its wealth and status as an imperial power. The institutions remaining from these strategic dynamics form the building blocks of federalism, legislative power, separation of powers, judicial review, and other institutions that comprise the American polity today.
Sean Gailmard is the Herman Royer Professor of Political Economy in the Political Science Department at UC Berkeley. Professor Gailmard studies how political institutions operate, change, and affect governance quality. His work focuses particularly on the evolution of US institutions, the executive branch, checks and balances across branches of government, and bureaucratic capacity. Gailmard applies strategic and historical perspectives to these issues. Professor Gailmard is the author of Agents of Empire: English Imperial Governance and the Making of American Political Institutions, as well as Learning While Governing: Expertise and Accountability in the Executive Branch (winner of Best Book awards from APSA sections on Political Economy and Public Administration). He has published research in leading social science journals.
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