Policies entrench by reshaping who holds political power.
Evidence
A second, related strategy is to enact policies or programs that have the effect of changing the composition of the political community—selecting in allies or selecting out opponents. A third strategy is to shift the locus of political decision making, empowering a different governmental institution and consequently a different set of political actors and groups. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 194
Categorization
- XREF: Composition-shifting and forum-shifting are the classic mechanisms by which an ideology entrenches itself through winnowing its opposition — parallels voter-base engineering in democratization and gerrymandering literature, and the reader’s institutionalists. — connects to: Political actors insulate favored policies by refashioning institutional context across many domains — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 25; Constitutions entrench policies through structure and rights much as legislation and elections do — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 462; Entrenchment works by capturing politics’ basic ground rules. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 117 (+9 more)
- SEED: Angle: ideologies embedded as ‘selecting-in allies, selecting-out opponents’ rules (naturalization law shaping electorate, voter-ID rules) are the stickiest because they change the actors who could later repeal them — the self-sealing move.
Broader Connections
- Incumbents use policy to both neutralize opposition and mobilize supporters to entrench themselves.
#expands(0.95) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 247 - Policies can entrench themselves by weakening their own enemies’ political capacity
#expands(0.93) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 201 - Some policies are self-consciously designed to entrench themselves and their creators.
#expands(0.92) - Political actors entrench power through functional mechanisms as readily as formal legal rules
#expands(0.88) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 42 - Some political entrenchment is deliberately designed, not merely incidental
#qualifies(0.82) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 202 - Political arrangements can reshape individual minds to preserve them.
#complicates(0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2932 - Sacralized politics yields a self-sustaining power structure resistant to change
#exemplifies(0.75) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 108