Political Demobilization and the Welfare State : Criminal Disenfranchisement in Perspective - North Carolina Case Study

Abstract

The issue of felon disenfranchisement has grown considerably over the past two decades. The following thesis places (criminal) disenfranchisement in the US, and those affected, firmly in the sphere of political economic studies. That is, this work takes the issue of felon disenfranchisement in the United States as a case in point regarding the relationship of political (de)mobilization and the welfare state. Utilizing a multi-method approach, this study contextualizes the place of political participation within welfare policy, integrates correctional systems into a welfare state framework, and reports on the detailed political and economic preferences of those removed from the electorate on account of felon disenfranchisement policy. This study is to the knowledge of the author the first to approach this issue from the political-economic lens of welfare state studies. In what follows, I illustrate the significance of political agency for the welfare state, as well as the role which welfare policy plays in fostering that same political agency. In addition, I provide a new framework for conceptualizing the welfare state, enveloping those services previously omitted from the accounting of welfare state effort into one coherent structure. Finally, this work provides detailed quantitative and qualitative data on the preferences of the politically disenfranchised not previously recorded. In particular, the evidence strongly suggests that the political demobilizaiton of low-income workers through the institutionalization of criminal disenfranchisement is of special interest to political scientists and scholars of the welfare state in general. In addition, it is argued that such policies may in fact benefit particular interests in the Democratic party and negatively impact the Republican party. Far from removing these voices from public discourse, the state may indeed benefit from their particular preferences - themselves products of their experiences with the state. In as much, the politically demobilized clients of the social corrections tier should be viewed not as destructive to democracy, but instructive to welfare policy oversight and development.