This article provides an answer to the question of why government support for child care policies and programs in the United States remains weak, despite increasing levels of women’s labor market participation and a relatively strong women’s movement, but strong in France, a country that has had lower levels of women’s labor market participation as well as a much weaker women’s movement. While those differences can be explained in part by economic and political interests and institutional and broad cultural differences, a theoretically richer understanding emerges when one examines how the three kinds of ideas underpinning these policy choices — norms, frames, and programmatic ideas — helped shape policies that emerged within specific actor, institutional, and cultural contexts.
Barnett, W. Steven and Donald J.Yarosz ( 2007)."Who Goes to Preschool and Why Does It Matter?" Preschool Policy Brief, no. 15. New Brunswick, NJ: NIEER, Rutgers University.
2.
Barnett, W. Steven, Jason T. Hustedt, Laura E. Hawkinson, and Kenneth B. Robin (2006). The State of Preschool: 2006 State Preschool Yearbook. New Brunswick, NJ: NIEER, Rutgers University.
3.
Baumgartner, Frank R. and Bryan D. Jones ( 1993). Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
4.
Bergmann, Barbara ( 1996). Saving Our Children from Poverty: What the United States Can Learn from France. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
5.
Berman, Sheri ( 2001). "Ideas, Norms, and Culture in Political Analysis ," Comparative Politics33(2): 231-50.
6.
Blyth, Mark( 2001)."The Transformation of the Swedish Model: Economic Ideas, Distributional Conflict, and Institutional Change," World Politics54(1): 1-26.
7.
Blyth, Mark ( 2002). Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Institutional Change in the Twentieth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press.
8.
Bodard Silver, Catherine ( 1977)."France: Contrasts in Familial and Societal Roles," in Women: Roles and Status in Eight Countries, ed. Janet Zollinger Giele and Audrey Chapman Smock.New York: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 257-99.
9.
Campbell, John L. ( 1998). "Institutional Analysis and the Role of Ideas in Political Economy," Theory and Society27(3): 377-409.
10.
Campbell, John L. ( 2002). "Ideas, Politics and Public Policy," Annual Review of Sociology28: 21-38.
11.
Cobble, Dorothy Sue ( 2004). The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
12.
Cohen, Sally S. ( 2001). Championing Child Care. New York: Columbia University Press.
13.
Cole, Joshua ( 2000). The Power of Large Numbers: Population, Politics, and Gender in Nineteenth-Century France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
14.
Cooper, Candy J. ( 1999). Ready to Learn: The French System of Early Education and Care Offers Lessons for the United States. New York : The French-American Foundation.
15.
Cova, Anne ( 1991). "French Feminism and Maternity: Theories and Policies 1890-1918," in Maternity and Gender Policies, ed. Gisela Bock and Pat Thane.London: Routledge, pp. 119-37.
16.
David, Marie-Gabrielle and Christophe Starzac ( 1991)."France: A Diversity of Policy Options," in Child Care, Parental Leave, and the Under 3s: Policy Innovation in Europe , ed. Sheila Kamerman and Alfred Kahn.New York: Auburn House, pp. 81-113.
17.
Diamond, Sarah ( 1995). Roads to Dominion: Right Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. New York: Guilford Press.
18.
Dogan, Mattei ( 2001). "Paradigms in the Social Sciences," International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences16: 11023-7.
19.
Downs, Laura Lee ( 1995). Manufacturing Inequality: Gender Division in the French and British Metalworking Industries, 1914-1939. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
20.
Duchen, Claire ( 1986). Feminism in France: From May ’68 to Mitterrand . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
21.
Durand, John D. ( 1948). The Labor Force of the United States. New York: Social Science Research Council .
22.
Eckstein, Harry ( 1988). "A Culturalist Theory of Political Change," American Political Science Review82: 789-804.
23.
Esping-Andersen, Gosta.1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press .
24.
Fagnani, Jeanne ( 2002). "Why Do French Women Have More Children Than German Women? Family Policies and Attitudes towards Child Care Outside the Home," Community , Work and Family5(1): 103-19.
25.
Fagnani, Jeanne ( 2003). "Supporting Working Parents in France: Is Family Policy at a Turning Point?" Japanese Journal of Population1: 1-26.
26.
Ferree, Myra Marx and David A. Merrill ( 2000). "Hot Movements, Cold Cognition: Thinking About Social Movements in Gendered Frames," Contemporary Sociology29: 454-62.
27.
Finnemore, Martha ( 1996). National Interests in International Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
28.
Fischer, Frank and John Forester , eds (1993). The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
29.
Florini, Ann ( 1996). "The Evolution of International Norms," International Studies Quarterly40: 363-89.
30.
Fuchs, Rachel ( 1995)."France in Comparative Perspective,"in Gender and the Politics of Social Reform in France 1870-1914, ed. Eleanor Accampo, Rachel Fuchs , and Mary Lynn Stewart.Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 157-87.
31.
Gauthier, Anne H. ( 1996). The State and the Family: A Comparative Analysis of Family Policies in Industrialized Countries. Oxford : Clarendon Press.
32.
Gelb, Joyce ( 1989). Feminism and Politics: A Comparative Perspective . Berkeley: University of California Press.
33.
Gerring, John ( 1997). "Ideology: A Definitional Analysis," Political Research Quarterly50: 957-99.
34.
Girard, Philip ( 1994). "Why Canada Has No Family Policy: Lessons from France and Italy," Osgoode Hall Law Journal32: 579-611.
35.
Goldstein, Judith and Robert Keohane, eds (1993). Ideas and Foreign Policy: Beliefs, Institutions and Political Change. Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press.
36.
Goodwin, Joanne ( 1997). Gender and the Politics of Welfare Reform: Mothers’ Pensions in Chicago, 1911-1929. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
37.
Hajer, Maarten A. ( 1993). "Discourse Coalitions and the Institutionalization of Practice: The Case of Acid Rain in Britain," in The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning, ed. Frank Fischer and John Forester.Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 43-76.
38.
Hall, Peter A. ( 1989). "Conclusion: The Politics of Keynesian Ideas," in The Political Power of Economic Ideas: Keynesianism Across Nations , ed. Peter A. Hall.Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 361-91.
39.
Hall, Peter A.( 1993)."Policy Paradigms, Social Learning and the State: The Case of Economic Policy-making in Britain," Comparative Politics25(3): 275-96.
40.
Hall, Peter A. and David Soskice, eds (2001). Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage. New York: Oxford University Press.
41.
Haskins, Ron ( 2005)."Child Development and Child-Care Policy: Modest Impacts ,"in Developmental Psychology and Social Change, ed. David B. Pillemer and Sheldon H. White.New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 140-70.
42.
Helburn, Suzanne W. and Barbara R. Bergman ( 2002). America’s Child Care Problem: The Way Out . New York: Palgrave Macmillan .
43.
Huber, Evelyne and John D. Stephens ( 2001). Development and Crisis of the Welfare State. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press .
44.
Inglehart, Ronald ( 1997). Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic and Political Change in Forty-three Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
45.
Jenson, Jane ( 1986). "Gender and Reproduction: Or, Babies and the State ," Studies in Political Economy20: 9-46.
46.
Jenson, Jane and Mariette Sineau ( 1995)."Family Policy and Women’s Citizenship in Mitterrand’s France," Social Politics2: 244-69.
47.
Joffe, Carole ( 1983)."Why the United States Has No Child-Care Policy," in Families, Politics and Public Policy: A Feminist Dialogue on Women and the State, ed Irene Diamond. New York: Longman , pp. 168-82.
48.
Jordan, Jason ( 2006). "Mothers, Wives, and Workers: Explaining Gendered Dimensions of the Welfare State," Comparative Political Studies39: 1109-32.
49.
Joshi, Heather and Hugh Davies ( 1992)."Day Care in Europe and Mothers’ Forgone Earnings ," International Labour Review132: 561-79.
50.
Kahneman, Daniel and Amos Tversky ( 1981). "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice ," Science211: 453-8.
51.
Kenneally, James J. ( 1985)."Women in the United States and Trade Unionism," in The World of Women’s Trade Unionism: Comparative Historical Essays, ed. Norbert C. Solden.Westport, CT: Greenwood, pp. 57-92.
52.
Kornbluh, Felicia ( 2007). The Battle for Welfare Rights: Politics and Policy in Modern America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
53.
Korpi, Walter ( 1983). The Democratic Class Struggle. London : Routledge & Kegan Paul.
54.
La Berge, Ann F. ( 1991). "Medicalization and Moralization: The Crèches of NineteenthCentury Paris," Journal of Social History25: 65-87.
55.
Ladd-Taylor, Molly ( 1994). Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare, and the State, 1890-1930 . Urbana and Chicago : University of Illinois Press.
56.
Lanquetin, Marie-Thérèse , Jacqueline Laufer, and Marie-Thérèse Letablier ( 2000). " From Equality to Reconciliation in France?" in Gendered Policies in Europe: Reconciling Employment and Family Life , ed. Linda Hantrais.Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 68-88.
57.
Lenoir, Rémi ( 1991). "Family Policy in France since 1938," in The French Welfare State: Surviving Social and Ideological Change , ed. John S. Ambler.New York : New York University Press, pp. 144-86.
58.
Leprince, Frédérique (1991). "Day Care for Young Children in France," in The French Welfare State. New York: New York University Press, pp. 10-26.
59.
Lieberman, Robert C. ( 2002). "Ideas, Institutions, and Political Order: Explaining Political Change," American Political Science Review96: 697-712.
60.
Mahoney, James ( 2000). "Path Dependence in Historical Sociology," Theory and Society29: 507-48.
61.
March, James G. and Johan P. Olsen ( 1989). Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press .
62.
May, Elaine Tyler ( 1995). Barren in the Promised Land: Childless Americans and the Pursuit of Happiness. New York: Basic Books.
63.
Michel, Sonya ( 1993). "The Limits of Maternalism: Politics toward American Wage-Earning Mothers during the Progressive Era," in Mothers of a New World, ed. Seth Koven and Sonya Michel.New York: Routledge: pp. 277-320.
64.
Michel, Sonya ( 1999). Children’s Interests/Mothers’ Rights: The Shaping of America’s Child Care Policy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
65.
Mink, Gwendolyn ( 1995). The Wages of Motherhood: Inequality in the Welfare State, 1917-1942. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Mitchell, Brian R. ( 2003a). International Historical Statistics: Europe 1750-2000 . 5th edn. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
68.
Mitchell, Brian R. ( 2003b). International Historical Statistics: The Americas 1750-2000 . 5th edn. New York : Palgrave Macmillan.
69.
Mittelstadt, Jennifer ( 2005). From Welfare to Workfare: The Unintended Consequences of Liberal Reform 1945-1965. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
70.
Morgan, Kimberly J. ( 2003). "The Politics of Mothers’ Employment: France in Comparative Perspective," World Politics55(2): 259-89.
71.
Morgan, Kimberly J. ( 2005). "The ‘Production’ of Child Care: How Labor Markets Shape Social Policy and Vice Versa," Social Politics12: 243-63.
72.
Morgan, Kimberly J. ( 2006). Working Mothers and the Welfare State: Religion and the Politics of Work-Family Policies in Western Europe and the United States. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
73.
Neuman, Michelle J. and Shanny Peer ( 2002). Equal From the Start: Promoting Educational Opportunity for All Preschool Children - Learning from the French Experience. New York: The French-American* Foundation .
74.
OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) ( 2000). OECD Country Note: Early Childhood Education and Care Policy in the United States of America. Paris: OECD.
75.
Oecd (2004). OECD Country Note: Early Childhood Education and Care Policy in France. Paris : OECD.
Offen, Karen ( 1991). "Body Politics: Women, Work and the Politics of Motherhood in France, 1920-1950," in Maternity and Gender Politics: Women and the Rise of the European Welfare States, 1880s-1950s, ed. Gisela Bock and Pat Thane.London: Routledge, pp. 138-59.
78.
Oliver, Pamela E. and Hank Johnston ( 2000). "What a Good Idea! Ideologies and Frames in Social Movement Research," Mobilization: An International Journal4: 37-54.
79.
Payne, Rodger A. ( 2001). "Persuasion, Frames and Norm Construction," European Journal of International Relations7: 37-61.
80.
Pedersen, Susan ( 1993). Family, Dependence, and the Origins of the Welfare State: Britain and France 1914-1945. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pierson, Paul ( 2000a). "Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics," American Political Science Review94: 251-67.
83.
Pierson, Paul ( 2000b)."Not Just What, but When: Timing and Sequence in Political Processes ," Studies in American Political Development14: 72-92.
84.
Quadagno, Jill ( 1994). The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press.
85.
Rucht, Dieter ( 1996). "The Impact of National Contexts on Social Movement Structures: A Cross-movement and Cross-national Comparison," in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, ed. Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald.New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 185-204.
86.
Schmidt, Vivien A. ( 2008). "Discursive Institutionalism: The Explanatory Power of Ideas and Discourse," Annual Review of Political Science11: 303-26.
87.
Schneider, Anne and Helen Ingram ( 1993). "Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy," American Political Science Review87: 334-47.
88.
Schneider, William H. ( 1990). Quality and Quantity: The Quest for Biological Regeneration in Twentieth-Century France. New York: Cambridge University Press.
89.
Skocpol, Theda ( 1992). Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
90.
Steinfels, Margaret O’Brien (1973). Who’s Minding the Children? The History and Politics of Day Care in America. New York: Simon & Schuster.
91.
Steinmo, Sven ( 1995). "Why is Government So Small in America?" Governance8: 303-34.
92.
Stratigaki, Maria ( 2004). "The Cooptation of Gender Concepts in EU Policies: The Case of ‘Reconciliation of Work and Family’," Social Politics11: 30-56.
93.
Thelen, Kathleen ( 2003). "How Institutions Evolve: Insights from Comparative Historical Analysis," in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, ed. James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer.New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 208-40.
94.
Thelen, Kathleen ( 2004). How Institutions Evolve: The Political Economy of Skills in Germany, Britain, the United States, and Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press.
95.
Unicef (2008). The Child CareTransition: A League Table of Early Childhood Education and Care in Economically Advanced Countries, Innocenti Report Card 8. Florence: UNICEF, Innocenti Research Centre.
96.
Verloo, Mieke, ed. (2007). Multiple Meanings of Gender Equality: A Critical Frame Analysis of Gender Policies in Europe. Budapest: Central European University Press.
97.
Weingast, Barry R. ( 1995). "A Rational Choice Perspective on the Role of Ideas: Shared Belief Systems and State Sovereignty in International Cooperation ," Politics and Society23: 449-64.
98.
Weir, Margaret ( 1992). Politics and Jobs: The Boundaries of Employment Policy in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
99.
White, Linda A. ( 2002). "Ideas and the Welfare State: Explaining Child Care Policy Development in Canada and the United States," Comparative Political Studies35: 713-43.
100.
White, Linda A. ( 2004a). "Explaining the Paradoxes of French Family and Employment Policies," French Politics2: 247-71.
101.
White, Linda A.( 2004b)."Trends in Child Care/Early Childhood Education/Early Childhood Development Policy in Canada and the United States," American Review of Canadian Studies34: 665-87.
102.
White, Linda A. ( 2006). "Institutions, Constitutions, Actor Strategies, and Ideas: Explaining Variation in Paid Parental Leave Policies in Canada and the United States," International Journal of Constitutional Law4(2): 319-46.
103.
Wilensky, Harold ( 1975). The Welfare State and Equality: Structural and Ideological Roots of Public Expenditures. Berkeley: University of California Press.
