#  Uma Ilavarasan (APRW) 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **March 25, 2025** 

 12:00PM - 01:00PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **CGIS Knafel room K354, or virtual via Zoom**  



 

 



 

###  **Zoom link below.** 

##  Today's speaker

 Uma Ilavarasan, “Policy by Contract”

##  Abstract

 Foundational theories of the state define it in terms of its monopoly powers, emphasizing its capacity to raise revenues and its subsequent redistribution of those revenues in the form of transfers, or goods and services. The logistics of this latter transformation are largely blackboxed: beyond patronage and patrimonialism, we know little about the political logics and institutional structures that shape the state’s contractual relationships with its employees and suppliers, and thus its actions as a monopsonist. Yet, there are good theoretical and historical reasons to believe that government consumption can facilitate market coordination and regulation. I begin by asking why states might specifically regulate the conditions of public employment and the conduct of government contractors. I rely on the trajectories of three temporally- and substantively-distinct U.S. federal policy-cases — the implementation of a maximum workday length, the desegregation of workplaces, and the standardizing of screw threads — to propose a rationale for policy by contract. Using a diverse set of archival records and secondary sources, I argue that this strategy can undergird both coordinative and redistributive policymaking. For policy-cases of the first type, its relative strength is the cheap enforcement mechanism it offers; for policy-cases of the second-type, strength is derived from submersion. In such instances, policy by contract can serve as an important step in a sequence that begins with the application of a policy to the public sector, continues via requirements for public contractors, and ends with economy-wide law. Contracts can mediate transitions, fraught with inter-branch conflict, from codes that govern federal workplaces to broad, binding mandates. Thus, in the cases I examine, “contracting out” augments the state’s current and future regulatory capacity.

   
*The American Politics Research Workshop (Gov 3004) meets all academic year, Tuesdays, 12:00–2:00 PM, in CGIS K354. This workshop presents an opportunity for graduate students and Harvard faculty to present and receive feedback on their current research. The workshop highlights key theoretical and empirical findings from Harvard affiliates on topics related to American politics.*

 *All interested Harvard affiliates are invited to attend.*

 [Zoom link for APRW](https://harvard.zoom.us/j/97251051620?pwd=IxhYtvwMeT10i0c2Tad6jSkWmRHZAL.1)



 

 



 

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