Philip Rocco

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. My research investigates the political development of the postwar American state, focusing in particular on the increasingly complex relationship between the federal government and the states. Since 1945, Congress has created statutes which require collaboration between the states and the federal government to accomplish critical policy goals – from healthcare to flood control. I show that these collaborative requirements, which enhance the transaction costs of governance, are the product of conservative political mobilization against liberal policy objectives.