Book Review: Policy drift: Shared powers and the making of U.S. law and policy

• Date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0275074018818770
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• Author: Philip Rocco
• Subject Matter: Book Review

American Review of Public Administration

2019, Vol. 49(4) 512 –513

© The Author(s) 2018

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Book Review

In 2013, the Supreme Court dealt a heavy blow to American

democracy. In Shelby County v. Holder, Chief Justice John

Roberts—writing for a 5-4 majority—struck down Section

4(b) of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). That provision con-

tained the formula to determine which jurisdictions would,

as the result of past legacies of discrimination, require

approval from the Department of Justice before changing

election laws and procedures. The years since the Shelby

decision have seen the rise of a particularly virulent strain of

voting restrictions in previously covered jurisdictions—

including racial gerrymanders, voter ID laws, and voter-roll

purges. In other words, we are seeing a backsliding away

from the VRA’s policy equilibrium.

How can rights once thought to be so entrenched erode

over time? In Policy Drift, Norma Riccucci wisely reminds

us that “[t]here is no finality to the public policy process” and

that “even those policies believed to be settled and stable can

change or drift in unexpected directions” (p. 1). Riccucci is

by no means the first scholar to make this claim. Following

on foundational work by Jacob Hacker, Kathleen Thelen,

Paul Pierson, and others, political scientists have become

increasingly interested in the processes by which putatively

settled reforms erode slowly over time. Yet, whereas most

studies of drift relegate their attention to major social and

health programs, Riccucci turns her attention to the crucial

domains of civil rights and environmental policy. This is

important in its own right. The study of postenactment poli-

tics has advanced considerably in recent years, yet, it has

been afflicted by a kind of tunnel vision that has left impor-

tant rights-preserving and welfare-enhancing policies off the

table. Riccucci’s study thus serves as a corrective lens, which

allows us to examine how drift unfolds in these critical

domains. It may also open up a broader conversation on how

well theories of gradual institutional change “travel” outside

the empirical context in which they were developed.

One key insight from Riccucci’s study is that drift is dif-

ficult to “design away” through creating automatic stabiliz-

ers (e.g., indexing the minimum wage to inflation) or

delegating authority to administrators who can update poli-

cies to reflect economic or social developments. As Riccucci

shows, policy drifts can result from shifts in the political

control of governing institutions rather than changes in the

technical policy context alone. Shifts in political control

allow existing legal frameworks to be converted over time.

By examining cases such as Ledbetter v. Goodyear—which

concerned the gender pay gap—Riccucci reveals how a

rightward shift in the balance of power on the Supreme Court

undermined existing interpretations of workplace-discrimi-

nation prohibitions in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of

1964. Political developments can also alter the capacity of

legislative institutions to recognize and reverse patterns of

drift. Congress’ efforts to reverse the Ledbetter decision were

stalled until Democrats made historic electoral gains in the

2008 elections. In short—more than careful policy design—

counteracting drift may depend on the embedding of support

for that policy in the political arena or the consolidation of

control by that policy’s most ardent supporters.

A second insight from Riccucci’s research is that revers-

ing undesirable policy drifts may require conscious acts of

venue shifting and issue framing. As Chapter 2 shows, civil

libertarians have mobilized to reverse policy drifts in the

U.S. privacy rights regime following the Patriot Act of 2001.

Yet, while many of these efforts have focused on litigation,

courts have generally deferred to the judgments of Congress

and executive-branch officials. Shifting the venue to the leg-

islative arena has proven difficult, however. If anything, the

Patriot Act has allowed policy makers to frame privacy con-

cerns as in direct conflict with national security. Federal offi-

cials have also framed whistleblowers who expose domestic

surveillance—such as Chelsea Manning or Edward

Snowden—as traitors. Neither litigation nor standard legisla-

tive coalition building appear sufficient to reverse policy

drift. Reversion to the pre-2001 status quo ante, if it happens,

may require a broader social mobilization that resets the

parameters of the privacy debate.

Finally, Riccucci shows that efforts to adapt policy to

meet new environmental demands may themselves be sub-

ject to forces of policy drift. The Environmental Protection

Agency (EPA) has repeatedly attempted to convert the Clean

Air Act of 1970 to address the problem of global warming.

Despite a 2007 Supreme Court decision ruling that the EPA

has the authority to regulate such gases, the agency has faced

great difficulty in making its new regulations stick. Not only

did the Supreme Court block the implementation of the

818770ARPXXX10.1177/0275074018818770The American Review of Public AdministrationBook Review

book-review2018

Book Review

Riccucci, N. M. (2018). Policy drift: Shared powers and the making of U.S. law and policy. New York: New York University Press. 304

pp. $30.00. ISBN 9781479839834.

Reviewed by: Philip Rocco, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA.

DOI: 10.1177/0275074018818770