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Regulating a Global Technology within the American Federalist System: The Ideological Origins of the 1926 Air Commerce Act
Date
2014-05-02Author
Seyer, Sean
Type of Degree
dissertationDepartment
HistoryRestriction Status
EMBARGOEDRestriction Type
FullDate Available
05-02-2019Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The 1926 Air Commerce Act represented the institutionalization of a specific
mental model for aviation regulation within the United States. This dissertation focuses
on how individuals and groups responded to three distinct influences—(1) the
Constitution’s state/federal separation of powers; (2) the 1919 Convention Relating to the
Regulation of Aerial Navigation; and (3) practical aerial experience along the U.S.–
Canadian border—to develop a regulatory system that corresponded to America’s
particular socio-political traditions. I argue that the development of aviation regulation in
the United States, a process previously presented as a solely domestic narrative, can only
be fully understood when approached from a global perspective.
As a device capable of three-dimensional movement, the airplane possessed the
innate ability to undermine state sovereignty. Though pioneering regulatory advocates in
the United States believed the airplane’s speed and freedom of movement necessitated
federal legislation, states and municipalities turned to their constitutionally-sanctioned
police powers to regulate the airplane as early as 1908. The airplane’s use in World War I
accentuated the need to constrain this potentially radical technology, but constitutional
questions remained. Although the 1919 convention’s ties to the League of Nations
precluded official American membership, the regulatory uniformity necessary for
international flight resulted in American acceptance of the convention’s principles and
norms. I present the idea of “techno-regulatory peer pressure”—the modification of a
government’s regulations to correspond to those of another to facilitate the cross-border
use of technology—as a means of placing the Air Commerce Act within its appropriate
international context.