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Employees of the federal government have been doing historical work since 1861 and have facilitated historical work in countless ways. This chapter discusses how academic historians have dominated the Mississippi Valley Historical Association / the Organization of American Historians (OAH) over nearly its entire lifetime. The marginalization of federal historians for many years led to the formation in 1979 of the Society for History in the Federal Government. The OAH soon began to better accommodate these historians, and at the end of its first century chose one of them to serve as its president.

Chapter One explores how women came to work for the federal government. During the early years of the Civil War, different supervisors, scattered across various executive departments, created individualized and ad hoc policies regarding female employees based on their immediate labor needs, budget constraints, and personal views on the wisdom of female federal employment. The demographic information in application letters, employee files, and department ledgers, show that women across the country and the socioeconomic spectrum responded to the opportunity of civil service work in overwhelming numbers. The federal government hired African American women as manual laborers and clerks, though in far fewer numbers than it hired white women. Women’s letters reveal that they yearned for intellectually demanding and high-paying jobs in a land of limited options for female employment.

Where do economists work, and what do they do? The absence of licensing or certification of economists implies that there is no full mapping of the profession. This chapter begins to provide that mapping, drawing on official government statistics, interviews and other sources. The mapping reveals the vast array of economists’ assignments and responsibilities in academia, the public and private sectors, non-governmental organizations and the multilateral agencies. While leadership of the profession (and its most prestigious associations) falls to academic economists, the majority of all economists are found outside of the university. Even this cursory survey of economists’ work begins to reveal the ethical quandaries that they face as they attempt to meet their professional responsibilities.

Wide adoption of computing began in the United States in the early 1940s and this chapter takes that story to the massive adoption of the Internet in the 1990s. The chapter explains the role of government, the Cold War, technological innovations, and economic preconditions that made rapid diffusion of IT possible in North America. The chapter describes the diffusion of information about computing around the country and how that propelled innovations and adoptions of the technology. The chapter argues that the American economy made the first and most aggressive investments in IT because it had the knowledge and need for this kind of technology, a perfect match in a capitalist economy that proved prosperous over the course of the second half of the twentieth century.

This chapter examines the various legal and political means of federal law enforcement by Germany’s Federal Government and by the Federal Constitutional Court. This is understood as a form of resolution of vertical power conflicts within federations. While by its nature the main focus of this chapter lies on the legal means of federal law enforcement within the context of the notion of executive federalism, it also devotes some attention to the political dimension. Since German federalism is strongly based on consensus and cooperation, this dimension is very important in practice. Where antagonism between the Federation and the Länder occurs (whether expressed in political or legal terms), it is frequently either motivated by party politics or triggered by matters where specific subnational interests are at stake. Apart from negotiation, adjudication by the Constitutional Court is one of the key instruments to deal with that.

The chapter focuses on political challenges to the decentralized structure of the U.S. polity, and on the response of conservative bankers. Wildcat bankers increasingly contested and disrupted the activities of conservative bankers, ultimately appealing to the need to defend slavery. Even in the aftermath of the Civil War, when slavery was formally abolished, sectional divisions continued characterizing debates about, and legislation on, the proper role of government. Conservative bankers were thus forced to refashion themselves as neutral arbiters of character and reputations, couching this role in an ideology that identified the value of money as deriving from commercial transactions, and shaping the constitution of the Federal Reserve System accordingly.

Rivalries and tensions in Somalia exist on several levels: within and between Federal Member States (FMS); between FMS and the Federal Government of Somalia; and in the wider region. This chapter argues that reconciliation should be incorporated into all reform and state-building efforts, including initiatives that relate to decentralization, federalism, and the constitution. A comprehensive and inclusive framework for national reconciliation should be developed. Within this framework, there should be mechanisms to hold leaders accountable, including for past crimes, for which a truth and reconciliation commission should be established. The application of xeer has helped build peace in Somaliland and could play an important role in promoting national reconciliation.

Political scientist and public opinion expert Natalie Motise Davis uses Alabama as a laboratory to study the paradox of a consistently churlish attitude toward the federal government on the part of so many white southerners and the region's equally consistent disproportionate benefitting from federal funding. Southern states benefit the most from federal programs and tax expenditures, Davis tells us, yet southerners have significantly more negative opinions about the role and performance of Washington than others around the country. Not only is the degree of southern reliance on the federal government not common knowledge in Dixie, it actually has little bearing on southern white opinions of the central government. Davis explores why is there is such a disconnect between the fact that Alabamians benefit disproportionally from public spending and tax policies and the belief by 40 percent, for example, that they pay “more than their fair share” in federal taxes. The chapter employs both aggregate and survey data in an accessible way to shed light on this apparent and important contradiction.

Chapter 2 examines how women applied for federal positions and details the criteria department heads used for selection. In general, supervisors were paternalistic, choosing female applicants who presented themselves as dependent and helpless over applicants who displayed independence and ambition. Supervisors gave jobs to women who had powerful men to advocate on their behalf, who appeared needy, and who were applying because some tragedy, often the Civil War, had removed their male support. While many women and their recommenders adhered to this narrative of dependence, women’s actions during the application process—including self-advocacy, working other jobs to stay afloat, and keeping abreast of developments in the departments—revealed significant independence and ambition. Julia Wilbur’s experience in obtaining a job in the Patent Office is detailed.

The chapter focuses on the federal executive, discussing the institutional mechanisms developed by the federal government to promote systematic, ongoing policy evaluation. They emphasise the historical dimension, here as regards monitoring and evaluation programmes, particularly since the 2000s. They attribute the growth of a technical culture of monitoring and evaluation to increasing government emphasis on social policy after re-democratisation, the expansion of public policy programmes at universities, the development of new information technology capabilities and the influence of international agencies on the government policy and programme evaluation agenda.

Political scientist Thomas F. Schaller examines in detail the unique role of South Carolina in American history and politics. The center of the Nullification Crisis of the nineteenth century, as well as the first state to secede, the Palmetto State has consistently been at the forefront of opposition to the federal government and a virulent insistence on the sanctity of states’ rights. Its importance continues today, as Schaller demonstrates, including the prominent role that the state's primary and customary visits to Bob Jones University play for the GOP presidential nominating process. From the 1770s South Carolina embraced the resister's role with relish and John C. Calhoun—perhaps its favorite son—is virtually synonymous with the antebellum “nullification” movement and the doctrine of interposition. Schaller examines why it is that South Carolina has repeatedly distinguished itself as a federal outlier to the Republic—a state first to secede, and often last to accede—to the laws and norms embraced by much of the rest of the nation. In doing so, he links the past to the present.

This chapter describes the invention of the modern poverty paradox – the increase of poor people in spite of economic growth in the 1950s. On this matter, the federal government played a pioneering role. By then, poor people were invisible, and federal officials gather statistics and ponder over new tools of measurement.

Human geographer David R. Jansson takes for his task the examination of contemporary attitudes of southern nationalists towards the central government, both from a critique of American “empire” by groups such as the neo-Confederate League of the South and the role that Latin American, particularly Mexican, immigration has played in antagonizing southern nationalists. The presence of dark-skinned people who speak Spanish in the local cultural landscape is interpreted, Jansson tells us, as a betrayal by the federal government of the South's largely homogenous and culturally cohesive communities. This fascinating chapter is based on interviews with League of the South members and leaders as well as email correspondence and materials from the League and other southern nationalist groups such as the Southern National Congress.

This chapter focuses on the pre-Goldwater period as critical in the formation of a Republican South. Specifically, it examines a 1961 special election for a congressional seat between Republican oil man Charlton Lyons and an older, conservative Democrat, Joe Waggoner. The election and the conduct of its candidates demonstrates that Republicans were making in-roads in the South before 1964 by capitalizing on “Kennedyphobia,” or southern white animosity to racial liberalism and an activist federal government. Lyons lost by a hair to his established opponent in a traditionally strong Democratic district by running on a platform tying him to a national Democratic Party perceived as excessively liberal, soft on communism, and out-of-touch with white north Louisianans on race.

This chapter considers the origins of Al-Shabaab and the gap between its rhetoric and practice. Despite its globalist agenda, reinforced by its allegiance to Al-Qaida, Al-Shabaab is at its core an ethnic movement with its focus on Somalia. As such, it can only survive, let alone expand, by offering better security, better prospects, and better governance than the structures established by the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS). Currently, however, the FGS is dominant and Al-Shabaab does not look like a viable alternative. To stem its decline, Al-Shabaab has appealed to Somalis as Muslims to support its role in the global campaign against ‘Western aggression’, while mounting attacks inside the country to undermine any appearance of growing stability, and attacking outside the country to dissuade Somalia's regional allies from continuing their support.

This chapter describe the pervasive system of segregation that relegated black Washingtonians to second-class citizenship in the 1910s and 1920s. Though never as rigid as many white Washingtonians might have hoped, segregation proved remarkably effective at undermining black progress and stifling black ambition in the early decades of the twentieth century. Democrat Woodrow Wilson institutionalized racial subordination within the federal government, a policy solidified during a decade of Republican control of Congress and the White House in the 1920s. Racial violence targeting D.C.’s black community, highly visible demonstrations of white power at the Lincoln Memorial and in Klan parades along Pennsylvania Avenue, and the spread of racial restrictive covenants all revealed the strength and resilience of white supremacy in the nation’s capital. And yet, despite the suffocating climate of segregation, black Washingtonians built self-sustaining neighborhoods and community institutions that affirmed black self-worth, cultivated black pride, and challenged the culture of white supremacy. Black self-assertion defended black dignity in a city that black residents claimed as their own.