Political actors insulate favored policies by refashioning institutional context across many domains

Evidence

Labor law and Social Security are hardly unique. A vast literature in the social sciences explores the multifarious means by which political actors insulate themselves and their policies from political change. Examples range widely. In economics, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have argued that the single greatest impediment to economic growth throughout world history has been the conservatism of entrenched elites who fear that “creative destruction” in the economic sphere could unsettle their dominance in the political sphere. Less dramatically, in legislative contexts ranging from tax reform and emissions trading to the Affordable Care Act and Dodd-Frank, political scientists have described how progressive reformers seek to “refashion the political context” in order to “entrench and deepen” their major policy initiatives. Another influential body of work describes how, following the lead of New Deal Democrats who sought to build their policy gains into the structure of the administrative state, temporarily prevailing political coalitions seek to manipulate administrative structure and process in order to “stack the deck” in favor of their preferred outcomes. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 25

Categorization

• XREF: Reviews the interdisciplinary literature on entrenchment — Acemoglu/Robinson, administrative-state ‘stack the deck,’ which connects to the reader’s interest in rationalizing ideology persistence and path dependence literature. — connects to: Institutional incentives amplify partisan caricatures — Rachel Hartman et al., Interventions to Reduce Partisan…, 23; Multiple institutional paths can realize the same political goal — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide, 437; Stabilized politics make direct legacy influence fade into structure — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 135 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Policies entrench by reshaping who holds political power. #expands (0.85) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 194
• Political actors entrench power through functional mechanisms as readily as formal legal rules #expands (0.84) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 42
• Stabilized politics make direct legacy influence fade into structure #corroborates (0.82) — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past, 135
• Seemingly substantive policy domains conceal underlying partisan self-entrenchment battles. #exemplifies (0.80) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 536
• Multiple institutional paths can realize the same political goal #expands (0.78) — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts, 437
• Institutional bias operates through structure rather than direct external pressure #expands (0.76) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 859
• Regimes shape political opportunity structure through toleration and forbidding choices #qualifies (0.72) — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 445