Making What Government Does Apparent to Citizens: Policy Feedback Effects, Their Limitations, and How They Might Be Facilitated

• Date: 01 September 2019
• Author: Suzanne Mettler
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716219860108
• Published date: 01 September 2019
• Subject Matter: General Lessons

30 ANNALS, AAPSS, 685, September 2019

DOI: 10.1177/0002716219860108

Making What

Government

Does Apparent

to Citizens:

Policy Feedback

Effects, Their

Limitations, and

How They

Might Be

Facilitated

By

SUZANNE METTLER

860108ANN The Annals of The American AcademyMaking What Government Does Apparent To Citizens

research-article2019

Public policies sometimes generate “policy feedback

effects,” reshaping public opinion and political partici-

pation among beneficiaries or the public generally,

often with the effects of generating supportive constitu-

encies that help to sustain the program. Yet such effects

do not always occur; in fact, despite that Americans use

more social policies than ever, antipathy to government

runs high—evidence of a seeming “government-citizen

disconnect.” Policy design and delivery matters for

policy feedback, as policies that make government’s

role more visible may make more of an impression on

beneficiaries; yet political polarization and distrust in

government can interfere with such effects. In addi-

tion, those who are most aware of the government’s role

in social provision often participate least in politics, and

vice versa. This article considers strategies that public

officials and other civic and political leaders can use to

facilitate policy feedback effects.

Keywords: policy feedback; social policy; policy

design; Affordable Care Act; political

polarization; public opinion; political par-

ticipation

What a difference a few years can make. In

March 2010, President Barack Obama

signed into law the Affordable Care Act (ACA),

achieving a goal that his party had pursued for

decades: health coverage for working-age

Americans. Yet when the midterm elections

arrived that fall, not only did voters fail to

reward the Democrats, but instead they gave

the president’s party what he himself termed a

“shellacking,” as Republicans picked up several

seats in the Senate and regained control of the

House. GOP officials continued, right up

through the 2016 election, to rally their voters

Suzanne Mettler is John L. Senior Professor of American

Institutions in the Government Department at Cornell

University. She is the author of five books, including,

most recently, The Government-Citizen Disconnect

(Russell Sage Foundation 2018).

Correspondence: suzanne.mettler@cornell.edu

MAKING WHAT GOVERNMENT DOES APPARENT TO CITIZENS 31

through calls to repeal the ACA. After President Trump took office, however,

public opinion over the ACA shifted from mostly “unfavorable” to mostly “favora-

ble,” as Democrats and independents grew more supportive (Kaiser Health

Tracking Polls 2019). Congress proved unable to muster the votes to “repeal and

replace” health reform in the Senate, where three Republicans voted against the

measure. As Trump and members of his administration threatened to weaken

components of the ACA, moreover, the public grew more protective of it. By the

time the 2018 midterms arrived, safeguarding the ACA became a winning issue

for Democratic candidates, including several in “red” states. Also, voters in some

conservative states threw their approval to ballot initiatives that called on state

lawmakers to adopt the ACA’s expanded Medicaid provisions. In short, the ACA

did finally generate “policy feedback effects,” but these did not occur immedi-

ately or automatically when the law was enacted.

When lawmakers engage in herculean efforts to enact major legislation with

far-reaching social, economic, or other effects, it seems reasonable to assume that

Americans will take notice, appreciate the new law, and reward its proponents in

elections. But it is not that simple. It is not that policies do not matter to citizens:

indeed, they do, as people appreciate the specific social policies they use, and

rate them highly. But that reaction does not necessarily translate into broader

support for those policies, lawmakers, or the party who championed them, or

government generally; and it does not guarantee that they will vote or participate

in politics in other ways. Still, it can: policy feedback sometimes happens, as poli-

cies created at an earlier time influence subsequent political attitudes and behav-

ior. It all depends.

The contemporary polity features what I call a “government-citizen discon-

nect” (Mettler 2018).1 On one hand, Americans deeply disapprove of government.

Survey data show that Americans’ trust in the federal government and their sense

that it is responsive to people like them—which ran high during the mid-twentieth

century—have plummeted for decades and hover at low levels today. At the same

time, Americans in all states and all counties of the nation rely on the federal gov-

ernment more than ever for social benefits that help them to afford health care,

housing, higher education, and retirement, and to sustain them in times of eco-

nomic insecurity. According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis,

the portion of the average American’s income that comes from federal social

transfers has increased from 7 percent in 1969 to 17 percent in 2014 (author’s

calculations from U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis 2016). Accounting for both

federal social transfers and tax expenditures for the same purposes, I find that use

of social benefits is common and widespread, with similar rates of use regardless

of income, partisanship, generation, and other divides (Mettler 2018, 54–80).

Simply put, we are all beneficiaries of government.

These two trends make for a paradoxical combination. Samuel Lubell, a politi-

cal scientist writing in the mid-twentieth century, predicted that as public policies

gained a larger role in Americans’ lives, citizens would become more affirming of

government, and politicians who protected social benefits would enjoy an easier

path to office (Lubell 1952). But while some evidence of such outcomes exists, so

does considerable evidence to the contrary. Over the past 40 years, conservatives