Policy Feedback: How Policies Shape Politics

Although the idea that existing policies can have major effects on politics and policy development is hardly new, the last three decades witnessed a major expansion of policy feedback scholarship, which focuses on the mechanisms through which existing policies shape politics and policy development. Starting with a discussion of the origins of the concept of policy feedback, this element explores early and more recent contributions of the policy feedback literature to clarify the meaning of this concept and its contribution to both political science and policy studies. After exploring the rapidly expanding scholarship on policy feedback and mass politics, this element also puts forward new research agendas that stress several ways forward, including the need to explain both institutional and policy continuity and change. Finally, the element discusses the practical implications of policy feedback research through a discussion of its potential impact on policy design. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

About the Author

Daniel Béland is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Public Policy (Tier 1) at the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy (University of Saskatchewan campus). A student of comparative social policy, he has published more than 10 books and 85 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Four of his previous books are exclusively devoted to U.S. social policy.

Andrea Louise Campbell is professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of How Policies Make Citizens and coauthor of The Delegated Welfare State.

R. Kent Weaver is professor of public policy and government at Georgetown University; senior fellow in Governmental Studies at The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC; and the coeditor of Do Institutions Matter?