Remaking the State

Dear Reader,

A great deal of the animus of right-wing populist governments, in the United States and elsewhere, is directed against “the administrative state,” also sometimes known as “the deep state.” These governments have come to power to free us from its grip, by restoring authority to the head of state, where it belongs.

But what is it? In the conservative telling, the administrative state is an army of unelected liberal bureaucrats who run the government, without accountability and according to their own ideological preference rather than the public’s needs. In Remaking the State, Sabeel Rahman, a prominent law professor and former government official, takes on this central topic in a completely different way. Rahman presents the administrative state as an essential part of a high-functioning democracy. Its roots lie in the early twentieth century, when the country needed a government that had additional capabilities, to deal with the challenges of a complex modern society, and also additional powers, to counterbalance the dominance of what people used to call “the trusts.”

Rahman is no apologist. He sees the administrative state that the Trump Administration is trying to dismantle as a deeply flawed institution, far too closed to popular participation. But making the president all-powerful is the wrong solution, which would make things much worse.

Remaking the State is a book we need at this moment. It demystifies a crucial subject and calls us to a better future.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Lemann
Director, Columbia Global Reports