Losing the Battle, Winning the War: The Feedback Effects of Policy Losses

• In Event: Policymaking and Responsiveness in States and Localities

Abstract

Much has been written about how public policies, once passed, can then subsequently alter politics in a variety of ways. Focusing on a wide range of issue areas, scholars have examined the feedback effects policies have had on a number of distinct political outcomes via a number of distinct mechanisms. Scholars have also examined the limits of feedback effects by noting the numerous barriers that policies must overcome to durably alter politics and identifying the conditions under which policies, rather than entrenching benefits for those who supported their passage, can instead undermine the political conditions that originally made them possible. Focusing on gun politics, this paper extends the literature on policy feedback by examining how policy losses suffered by organized groups can, paradoxically, help those groups build political power that can then be deployed in subsequent political battles; in the case of the National Rifle Association, gun policy losses have – in a number of ways – consistently enabled the group to reinforce a sense of identity among its supporters, which it later uses to spur collective action on behalf of gun rights. The analysis presented here advances our understanding of the nature of self-undermining feedback effects and the mechanisms through which they operate by showing how policy outcomes can interact with the identity-building efforts of organized groups in ways that enable those groups to use policy losses to their long-term advantage.

Author

• Matthew Lacombe, Barnard College, Columbia University