Limiting Policy Backlash: Strategies for Taming Countercoalitions in an Era of Polarization

• Date: 01 September 2019
• Published date: 01 September 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716219862511
• Subject Matter: General Lessons

DOI: 10.1177/0002716219862511

ANNALS, AAPSS, 685, September 2019 47

Limiting Policy

Backlash:

Strategies for

Taming

Counter-

coalitions in

an Era of

Polarization

By

ERIC M. PATASHNIK

862511ANN The Annals of the American AcademyLimiting Policy Backlash

research-article2019

Policy backlash occurs when people or organizations

mobilize against a policy during or after its enactment,

diminishing the power of supporters and reducing the

likelihood of the policy’s subsequent entrenchment and

expansion. This article analyzes backlash as a case of

negative policy feedback and explores some of the

mechanisms through which backlash occurs among

elites, organized groups, and mass publics. The main

focus is on the politics of “backlash prevention”: using

strategies to minimize the prospects of countercoali-

tions against policies serving diffuse or marginalized

constituencies in an era of partisan polarization. These

strategies include increasing the progressivity of pro-

grams after they have become embedded, recognizing

that reforms can threaten the social identities and sta-

tus of constituencies, and increasing reliance on low-

visibility taxes. While countercoalitions cannot be

completely neutralized in today’s contentious political

environment, these strategies can load the dice in favor

of sustainable change.

Keywords: policy feedback; partisan polarization;

policy sustainability; backlash; policy

design

Public policies are outputs of the political

process, but they are also inputs to it, caus-

ing reactions that influence subsequent policy-

making (Pierson 1993). As E. E. Schattschneider

(1935) famously argued, “new policies create a

new politics.” Existing policies shape the politi-

cal agenda, the political participation of citi-

zens, and the activities of policymaking

institutions. Public policies, once enacted, can

generate their own political durability and

Eric M. Patashnik is Julis-Rabinowitz Professor of

Public Policy and Political Science in the Watson

Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown

University. He is the author of several books, including

Unhealthy Politics: The Battle over Evidence-Based

Medicine (with Alan Gerber and Conor Dowling;

Princeton University Press 2017).

Correspondence: eric_patashnik@brown.edu

48 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

growth by building mass constituencies and affecting the preferences and capac-

ities of elite actors such as interest groups, elected officials, and bureaucracies

(Campbell 2012; Mettler 2005; Hacker 1998; Pierson 1994; Skocpol 1992).

But public policies do not always produce self-reinforcing feedback (Patashnik

and Zelizer 2013; Jacobs and Weaver 2015; Baumgartner and Jones 2002; Jones,

Theriault, and Whyman 2019). They sometimes endogenously generate policy

backlash, a strong adverse reaction against a line of policy development. Policy

backlash occurs when people or organizations mobilize against a policy during or

after its enactment, diminishing the power of its supporters and reducing the

likelihood of the policy’s subsequent entrenchment and expansion. Backlash does

not always lead to the reversal of a policy, but it shapes the outcomes of the next

round of politics. Backlash may be driven by a perception that a policy will

impose material losses on actors, or a belief that a policy is failing to show due

respect to a constituency’s values, preferences, or status within the society.

Examples include the popular uprising in Germany after the country took in mil-

lions of asylum seekers (Karnitschnig 2015), white resentment following the pas-

sage of civil rights legislation (Edsall and Edsall 1992), and the countermobilization

of business power in response to the vast expansion of the American regulatory

state in the 1970s (Vogel 1989; Hacker and Pierson 2014).

Backlash can be sparked by policy movements in any direction. However, it is,

arguably, a particular threat today to the adoption and sustainability of policies

that serve diffuse, marginalized, or otherwise poorly organized constituencies,

such as consumers and lower-income Americans. While the targets of general

interest or egalitarian policies may lack the incentive or capacity to take part in

politics to defend the policies that serve them, their opponents may mobilize

potent countercoalitions, pressuring the government to change course and serve

more concentrated or advantaged interests (Patashnik 2008; Patashnik and

Zelizer 2013; Jacobs and Weaver 2015). As I argue below, the current environ-

ment of polarization and intense partisan competition (Binder 1996; Lee 2009)

have increased the vulnerability of general interest and redistributive policies to

counterlobbying. In sum, reducing the odds and potency of backlash is critical to

the political sustainability of activist government.

In this article, I analyze policy backlash as an extreme case of negative feed-

back. Following a literature review, the article explores some of the key mecha-

nisms through which policy backlash occurs among elite actors, organized

groups, and mass publics. My main focus is on the politics of “backlash preven-

tion”: using policy design (and other) strategies to minimize the prospects of

countercoalitions. I identify and discuss eight strategies that advocates of general-

interest and redistributive policies can deploy: (1) increasing the progressivity of

programs after policy embedding, (2) recognizing that new polices can implicitly

threaten the social identities and status of target constituencies, (3) increasing

reliance on low-visibility taxes, (4) assessing the potential for backlash and incor-

porating sustainability considerations into policy design, (5) balancing respon-

siveness to party bases and marginal supporters, (6) undercutting the institutional

bases of support of rent-seeking groups, (7) fragmenting and dividing the inter-

ests of those opponent groups, and (8) coopting partisan opponents through