Electoral and legislative entrenchment form one larger insulating phenomenon

Evidence

One is election law, where scholars have increasingly viewed the entrenchment of incumbent officeholders, political parties, and majority coalitions as the central problem that legal regulation of the political process should be designed to solve. … Courts and scholars have understood electoral and legislative entrenchment as separate and independent phenomena, but it may be more illuminating to view them as pieces of a larger puzzle. Political actors use electoral entrenchment to accomplish indirectly what legislative entrenchment accomplishes directly, namely, insulating substantive policy outcomes against shifting political preferences. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 41

Categorization

• DEFINE: Unifies the two doctrinal contexts under one mechanism: insulating policy outcomes from shifting preferences.
• SEED: Possible essay angle: how a rationalizing ideology is rendered sticky not just by being written into law (legislative entrenchment) but by being wired into the electoral incentives that keep its defenders in power — the indirect route.
• XREF: connects to: Anti-busing activists turned electoral pressure against elected officials over legal appeals. — Matthew D. Lassiter, The Suburban Origins of “Color-Blind”…, 68; Scholars treat legislative, electoral, and constitutional entrenchment as unrelated despite functional similarities — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 34; Some political entrenchment is deliberately designed, not merely incidental — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 202 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Entrenched policy outcomes can be locked in through either electoral or legislative means #expands (0.95) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 161
• Electoral rules have long served partisan entrenchment across American history #exemplifies (0.85) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 83
• Entrenchment pervades democratic politics far beyond legislative and election rules #complicates (0.85) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 536
• Substantive policy entrenchment outlasts and outperforms partisan entrenchment in durability. #complicates (0.82) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 166
• Some political entrenchment is deliberately designed, not merely incidental #expands (0.80) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 202
• Electoral entrenchment has two distinct forms requiring distinct review. #complicates (0.80) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 117
• Constitutional design varies in how insulated policymakers are from ex post control #expands (0.78) — Philippe Aghion, Alberto Alesina, and Francesco Trebbi, Endogenous Political Institutions, 15