Whether entrenchment is harmful or beneficial resists categorical judgments

Evidence

The same is true of the prior, and more fundamental, question of whether formal entrenchment—or any other category of comparable political behavior—is actually harmful or socially undesirable. As the discussion of constitutional entrenchment below will elaborate, it is far from obvious whether entrenchment generally should be viewed as a democratic pathology that we should be striving to extirpate, or, instead, as a socially beneficial constraint on untrammeled majority rule. Probably the best answer is some of both. Some uses of entrenchment will be widely perceived as beneficial, others as clearly harmful, and still others debatable. One need only consider examples like Social Security or Lazarus’s entrenchment scheme for climate change legislation to appreciate the difficulties and disagreements that will inevitably arise in distinguishing socially beneficial from socially destructive entrenchment. — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 443

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Entrenchment carries both benefits and costs depending on context — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 509; Formal and functional entrenchment do not differ in harm or benefit; Functional entrenchment can be legitimate when it insulates sound policies against short-term reversal — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 393

Broader Connections

• Functional entrenchment can be legitimate when it insulates sound policies against short-term reversal #exemplifies (0.90) — Daryl Levinson and Benjamin I. Sachs, Political Entrenchment and Public Law, 393
• Formal and functional entrenchment do not differ in harm or benefit #contradicts (0.85)