US institutions are biased toward stasis that protects existing hierarchies

Evidence

Three findings demonstrate how, in our age of massive inequality, the US policy system privileges stasis (doing nothing) over change. This bias toward the status quo tends to protect rather than disrupt existing hierarchies, magnifying advantage for those who already have power, paving the way for economic power to become political power, and limiting opportunities for progressive policy change. — Nathan Kelly and Jana Morgan, How US Policymaking Institutions…, 21

Categorization

• DEFINE: Frames ‘bias toward the status quo’ as the paper’s central explanatory concept for how inequality persists.
• SEED: An essay could argue that ‘doing nothing’ is itself a policy choice with winners and losers — a mirror of the Complaints About Immodesty piece’s theme of neutral-seeming norms as signaling.
• XREF: connects to: U.S. political institutions structurally hinder majority-driven policy change. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 106