Looking Back on President Barack Obama’s Legacy: Hope and Change

Description

When President Barack Hussein Obama left office January 20, 2017, he left a fascinating legacy. The Obama Presidency will remain an intriguing part of our nation’s political history, and we can now say that there were unexpected achievements and failures. His tenure was both historical and complex, and will inevitably be compared with his predecessors and successors. The chapters in this volume are a serious assessment of President Obama’s tenure written by a diverse team that includes political scientists, sociologists, historians, and economists. They provide critical insights into the man and his policies and, more importantly, are written in a manner that makes them available to laypersons, journalists, students, and scholars. Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii Introduction: Barack Obama and the Transformational Impulse (Wilbur C. Rich)....Pages 1-24 The Obama Legacy in American Electoral Participation (Lyn Ragsdale)....Pages 25-46 Managing a Regime in Crisis: The Twilight of Neoliberalism and the Politics of Economic Recovery During the First Year of the Obama Administration (Kristoffer Smemo)....Pages 47-68 The Obama Health Care Legacy: The Origins, Implementation, and Effort to Repeal the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (Jill Quadagno, Daniel Lanford)....Pages 69-92 Appraising the Foreign Policy Legacy of the Obama Presidency (Meena Bose)....Pages 93-113 The World We Have Lost: US Labor in the Obama Years (Ruth Milkman)....Pages 115-131 Swimming the Multiple Currents: The Political and Racial Time of Barack Obama’s Presidency (Kimberley S. Johnson)....Pages 133-147 The Legacy of President Obama in the U.S. Supreme Court (Isaac Unah, Ryan Williams)....Pages 149-189 The Obama Administration’s Global Warming Legacy: Going with the Flow and the Politics of Failure (George A. Gonzalez)....Pages 191-210 Unfulfilled Hopes: President Obama’s Legacy (Stanley Renshon)....Pages 211-248 Conclusion: Who Was President Barack Obama? (Wilbur C. Rich)....Pages 249-257 Back Matter ....Pages 259-263