Some policies are self-consciously designed to entrench themselves and their creators.

Evidence

Once it was decided that the country was to be saved from communism and indeed from itself, a whole science of modernization for Vietnam (whose latest and most costly phase came to be known as “Vietnamization”) came into being. Not only government specialists but university experts were involved. In time, the survival of pro-American and anticommunist regimes in Saigon dominated everything, even when it became clear that a huge majority of the population viewed those regimes as alien and oppressive, and even when the cost of fighting unsuccessful wars on behalf of those regimes had devastated the whole region and cost Lyndon Johnson the presidency. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 153 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

While Greenwald (1980) sees only an analogy between the practices of conservative systems of government and the cognitive tendency to avoid change, we suggest a more direct link: political systems that seek to preserve the status quo at all costs may produce people whose minds work to preserve the status quo at all costs. We assume that biases such as “cognitive conservatism” (e.g., Greenwald, 1980; Janoff-Bulman, 1992) acquire the particular effects they do because they operate in the context of unequal social systems requiring substantial ideological justification, as suggested by critical aspects of feminist and Marxist philosophies. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2932 (#expands, via linked claim)

At the very least, courts and scholars, along with voters and citizens, would do well to recognize that it is not only the arcane possibility of legislative entrenchment or the transparently strategic features of election law like gerrymandering and voter ID requirements that should be viewed through the prism of entrenchment. Labor law reform ought to be understood as a partisan battle between incumbent Democrats and Republicans fighting over their own election prospects, and not only as a contest over union organizing rights and labor-management relations. The same is true for immigration law, tort law, and many other policy initiatives. It is also true for the creation of central banks, human rights treaties, and the question of whether or not the District of Columbia should become a state. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 536 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Sunset provisions can function as hidden self-entrenchment duplicating irrepealability — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 380; Entrenchment often arises from unintended path-dependent feedback, not strategic design — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 492; Entrenchment can serve public ends like precommitment and stability, not just self-serving power (+8 more)

Related

• Seemingly substantive policy domains conceal underlying partisan self-entrenchment battles. (similarity 0.86)
• Political arrangements can reshape individual minds to preserve them. (similarity 0.81)
• Policy goals created a self-perpetuating scholarly industry justifying itself. (similarity 0.79)
• Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs — Political Entrenchment and Public Law (similarity 0.78)
• Entrenchment often arises from unintended path-dependent feedback, not strategic design (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Policy goals created a self-perpetuating scholarly industry justifying itself. #exemplifies (0.85) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 153
• Political arrangements can reshape individual minds to preserve them. #expands (0.80) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2932
• Seemingly substantive policy domains conceal underlying partisan self-entrenchment battles. #corroborates (0.80) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 536
• Schmölders believed some economic behaviors could be deliberately reshaped by policy. #exemplifies (0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 337
• Commitments are often manufactured by removing one’s own control over action #expands (0.72) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 714