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When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Paul Pierson
Paul Pierson
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Abstract

As governmental activity has expanded, scholars have been increasingly inclined to suggest that the structure of public policies has an important influence on patterns of political change. Yet research on policy feedback is mostly anecdotal, and there has so far been little attempt to develop more general hypotheses about the conditions under which policies produce politics. Drawing on recent research, this article suggests that feedback occurs through two main mechanisms. Policies generate resources and incentives for political actors, and they provide those actors with information and cues that encourage particular interpretations of the political world. These mechanisms operate in a variety of ways, but have significant effects on government elites, interest groups, and mass publics. By investigating how policies influence different actors through these distinctive mechanisms, the article outlines a research agenda for moving from the current focus on illustrative case studies to the investigation of broader propositions about how and when policies are likely to be politically consequential.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , July 1993 , pp. 595 - 628
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1993

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