Policies create their own supportive constituents and destroy their opponents

Evidence

By means of the protective system governments stimulate the growth of industries dependent on this legislation for their existence, and these industries form the fighting legions behind the policy. The tariff likewise destroys interests. The losers adapt themselves to the new conditions imposed upon them, find themselves without the means to continue the struggle, or become discouraged and go out of business. Is this not true, in varying degrees, of nearly all other policies also? New polices create a new politics. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 204

Categorization

• XREF: Schattschneider’s classic statement of policy feedback — foundational for the reader’s institutional-persistence thread alongside Pierson and the trade-agreement example above. — connects to: Policies can entrench themselves by weakening their own enemies’ political capacity — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 201; Seemingly substantive policy domains conceal underlying partisan self-entrenchment battles. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 536; Some policies are self-consciously designed to entrench themselves and their creators. (+7 more)
• SEED: Interesting angle: whether the self-creation of beneficiaries works differently for rationalizing ideologies embedded in law versus redistributive economic policy, where beneficiaries have material stakes.

Broader Connections

• Policies can entrench themselves by weakening their own enemies’ political capacity #expands (0.95) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 201
• Politicians deliberately shape who votes by steering policy to select their own electorate. #exemplifies (0.93) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 281
• Policies entrench by reshaping who holds political power. #expands (0.92) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 194
• Incumbents use policy to both neutralize opposition and mobilize supporters to entrench themselves. #expands (0.90) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 247
• Some policies are self-consciously designed to entrench themselves and their creators. #exemplifies (0.88)
• Ideological politics destroys the very constituency the ideology claims to serve #complicates (0.82) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1070
• Seemingly substantive policy domains conceal underlying partisan self-entrenchment battles. #expands (0.78) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 536
• Conspiracism ultimately destroys its own partisan allies as well as its targets #exemplifies (0.75) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 227
• Institutions used as instruments can be destroyed by their own alignment with compromised allies. #complicates (0.72)