US policymaking institutions are structurally designed to block policy change

Evidence

In the first section, we discuss the ways in which US policymaking institutions are structurally designed to maintain the status quo, pointing to four characteristics that play a role in impeding policy change: 1) our system’s high number of veto players; 4) the difficulty of amending the US Constitution. — Nathan Kelly and Jana Morgan, How US Policymaking Institutions…, 46

Categorization

• DEFINE: Names and organizes the four institutional features (veto players, filibuster, malapportionment, amendment difficulty) that the brief’s argument rests on.
• XREF: Maps onto standard veto-player and supermajority literature on American political development. — connects to: U.S. political institutions structurally hinder majority-driven policy change. — Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, Testing Theories of American Politics:…, 106