Learning and adaptive preference shifts under a policy can themselves function as entrenchment

Evidence

Other kinds of impediments to political change blur the boundary between entrenchment and ordinary politics. Suppose that Social Security persists not (just) because of interest group mobilization but because of its increasing popularity over time, as Americans have learned from their experience under the program that mandatory savings for retirement is more beneficial than they initially imagined. One could view this dynamic of endogenous preference change as a mechanism of entrenchment on the theory that this kind of pathdependent increase in political support should count as a special impediment to ordinary political change. Or suppose that critical support for preserving Social Security stems from the expectation among workers that the earmarked taxes they have paid into the program are now owed to them by the government upon retirement, or by the reliance of many Americans on the existence of Social Security payments to support their retirement, leading them not to save through other vehicles. One could also view these kinds of adaptive preference shifts as mechanisms of entrenchment. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 56

Categorization

• SEED: The contrast between learning-driven support (legitimate) vs. adaptive preference formation (entrenchment) is a sharp distinction worth an essay on why some ideologies ‘stick’ through belief change rather than raw power.
• DEEPTHINKING: The endogenous-preference-change problem is genuinely hard: it forces a decision on whether preferences shaped by the status quo should count as authentic majoritarian will, a distinction central to legitimacy theory.
• XREF: connects to: Entrenchment analysis must bracket preference formation and judge only barriers to present majority will — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 57; Political entrenchment means making political change more difficult than it otherwise would be — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 47; Policy persistence from popularity is not entrenchment; only nonresponsiveness to preference shifts is — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 51 (+11 more)

Broader Connections

• Policy persistence from popularity is not entrenchment; only nonresponsiveness to preference shifts is #contradicts (0.75) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 51
• Entrenchment often arises from unintended path-dependent feedback, not strategic design #complicates (0.75) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 492
• Behavioral departures from norms can be adaptive responses #expands (0.72) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 443
• Conformism stays adaptive under rapid change though heavy social learning does not #expands (0.72)
• Human evolution selected for learnability and behavioral malleability, not fixedness #corroborates (0.72)