118: Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress -- And How to Bring it Back

Why does it feel like government can’t get things done? From housing to infrastructure to climate, even widely supported policies often stall. In this episode, Boyd Cothran speaks with Marc J. Dunkelman about his new book, Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back. At the center of Dunkelman’s argument is a tension inside progressivism itself. Since the late nineteenth century, reformers have oscillated between two competing impulses: a Hamiltonian desire to build strong, capable institutions that can solve large-scale problems, and a Jeffersonian instinct to restrain power, disperse authority, and guard against coercion. The Progressive Era did not resolve this tension—it institutionalized it. In this episode, we explore the Progressive Era origins of this tension, the idea of a “Second Gilded Age,” and what it might mean to build a more effective state today.

Further Reading:

Marc J. Dunkelman, Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back

Daniel Wortel-London and Boyd Cothran, “A Second Gilded Age? The Promises and Perils of an Analogy: Introduction” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 19, no. 2 (2020): 191–96.

About the Guest:

Marc J. Dunkelman is a fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. His work focuses on American political development, governance, and the history of reform.

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