Asymmetric Partisan Polarization, Labor Policy, and Cross-State Political Power-Building

• Published date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716219862524
• Author: Alexander Hertel-Fernandez
• Date: 01 September 2019
• Subject Matter: General Lessons

64 ANNALS, AAPSS, 685, September 2019

DOI: 10.1177/0002716219862524

Asymmetric

Partisan

Polarization,

Labor Policy,

and Cross-State

Political Power-

Building

By

ALEXANDER HERTEL-

FERNANDEZ

862524ANN The Annals of the American AcademyAsymmetric Partisan Polarization and Labor Policy

research-article2019

As the Republican Party has moved to the Right, con-

servative politicians have become more comfortable

viewing policy as a means of demobilizing their political

adversaries. In this article, I show how conservative

activists within the Republican Party have leveraged

cutbacks to union rights to weaken their political oppo-

nents. This case study thus reveals the role of policy

feedback strategies in asymmetric partisan polarization.

It also illustrates lessons about the conditions under

which policy feedback can durably shift the distribution

of power in America’s fragmented polity. These insights

underscore how the success of policy feedback effects

depends not just on the initial passage of policies in one

city or state, but on the ability of political actors to organ-

ize in multiple venues simultaneously. In particular, they

highlight the importance of organizing at the cross-state

level given the substantial political authority of states.

Keywords: policy feedback; labor policy; unions; con-

servative movement; state policy; federalism

In recent years, the two U.S. political parties

have polarized, growing further apart on a

range of policy areas (McCarty, Poole, and

Rosenthal 2006). Yet this polarization has not

been symmetric. As an increasing body of politi-

cal science and historical scholarship has docu-

mented, the Republican Party has grown

substantially more conservative than Democrats

have grown liberal (Hacker and Pierson 2005;

Kabaservice 2012). Conservative ideological

extremism is present in both the substance of

the issues that right-leaning politicians prioritize,

as well as the tactics with which they pursue

those policy goals (Mann and Ornstein 2012).

Alexander Hertel-Fernandez is an assistant professor of

international and public affairs at Columbia University.

His research focuses on American political economy.

His most recent book is State Capture: How Con-

servative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors

Reshaped the American States—And the Nation

(Oxford University Press 2019).

Correspondence: ah3467@columbia.edu

ASYMMETRIC PARTISAN POLARIZATION AND LABOR POLICY 65

Republican politicians are now substantially more likely to play “hardball”—

deploying strategies that are legally within the bounds of constitutional doctrine

but violate historical norms of political conduct—than they were in the past and in

comparison with Democrats (Fishkin and Pozen 2018). In particular, Republicans

have become more comfortable viewing policy as a means of demobilizing or dis-

advantaging their political adversaries—for instance, by making it harder for

Democratic-leaning constituencies to vote or by imposing tax increases on liberal

states and institutions (Bentele and O'Brien 2013; Dwyer 2018).

In this article, I consider another way that conservatives have deployed such

strategies using policy feedback effects. I show how an increasingly powerful

conservative movement within the Republican Party has leveraged cutbacks to

union rights to weaken their political opponents even as Democrats have not

seen labor policy through this lens. A close examination of this policy area reveals

the role of policy feedback strategies in asymmetric partisan polarization.

Building on recent scholarship studying scope conditions for feedback processes

(e.g., Galvin and Thurston 2017; Jacobs and Weaver 2015; Patashnik and Zelizer

2013), this case study also illustrates broader lessons about the conditions under

which political reformers are most likely to be successful in pursuing enduring

policy feedback effects that shift the distribution of power in the fragmented

American polity. These lessons include:

organizing at the right levels of government,

leveraging spillovers between different domains and levels of government so

that policy wins in one arena build resources that can be deployed in others,

ensuring organizational mobilizations that connect feedback processes to

the mass public, and

leveraging a range of proposals viable within different political contexts that

make cumulative progress toward the same objective.

Together, these insights underscore how the success of policy feedback effects

depends not just on the initial passage of policies in one venue, but instead on the

ability of political actors to organize in multiple venues simultaneously before,

during, and after policy enactment (cf. Galvin and Thurston 2017). In particular,

they highlight the importance of political organizing at the cross-state level given

the substantial authority of states in the American political system (Grumbach

2018). Before I assess each of these lessons in more detail, I describe the consid-

erable asymmetry that exists between Democrats and Republicans on labor poli-

tics and spell out its implications for policy feedback effects.

The Growth of Conservative Advocacy Targeting

Labor Unions

Over the past four decades, conservative political activists and donors, often bol-

stered by private-sector businesses, have built up organizations that have success-

fully pressed for significant policy changes across the U.S. states (Hertel-Fernandez