Social, economic and political reforms in the United States are accomplished as the result of both pressure from certain groups of citizens with focused interests, as well as the efforts of the government, including the President, the Congress and/or the Supreme Court. Substantial reform must ultimately be implemented through legislation for it to be effective, whether it originates with an interest group or with governmental initiative. The analysis of these two explanations and their applicability to reform must therefore be made on a case-by-case basis.
For example, the gains won by the women's liberation movement were the result primarily of pressure from organized groups of women and their male supporters in and out of the government.
The same is true of the civil rights movement. Without the pressure put on the government by the organized civil rights activists of the movement, the Presidential efforts, major Congressional legislation and court decisions on behalf of such rights would certainly not have taken place when they did.
The programs of the New Deal, on the other hand, were the result of profound social and economic necessity. Certainly there were groups which were demanding reform from the government, but even without such group pressure, the federal government would have had to institutionalize massive reforms in order to meet the peoples' basic needs as a result of the Depression.
One facet of this issue is clear---a specific era of reform which yields massive and even fundamental changes in society does not necessarily mean that every needed reform takes place. This fact helps clarify the difference between reform born of group pressure and reform born of government action. In the case of the New Deal, the groups which benefitted most from government reform were the groups which benefitted most in society before the Depression. Specifically, women and minorities were often squeezed out of the loop ...