Cold War Governance: The State That Anti-Statism Built in Postwar America

Abstract Wars make states, but the conclusion of conflict is critical for the trajectory of state-building that follows. At the end of World War II, both conservatives and progressives in the United States recognized the potential for ongoing statist development fueled by the wartime introduction of mass taxation and the expansion of regulatory intervention into the lives of citizens and the activities of firms. Entrenched traditions of anti-statism in American politics resurfaced forcefully only to encounter the new threats of a nuclear-capable Soviet Union and the onset of what came to be known as the Cold War. This conjuncture both reoriented and fractured trajectories of state development, leading to reliance on mechanisms – capitation, categorical eligibility, regulation of organizations, and limited duration – that enabled expansive federal intervention in the form of funds attached to rules but minimized the construction of new bureaucratic organization. These governing practices are evident in both the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (the G.I. Bill) and the European Recovery Act of 1948 (the Marshall Plan). The result was the development of a powerful postwar state that was deeply marked by anti-statist politics, a configuration that shaped future waves of both policy expansion and openings for renewed efforts to constrain the capacity of the American state.