Portfolio Routing How a Sympathetic Administration Channels Allied Movements into Divergent Institutional Pathways

• In Event: Comparative-Historical Perspectives on Climate Change (Co-sponsored by Environmental Sociology Section)

Abstract

Why do allied movements achieve radically different outcomes under the same sympathetic administration? Political mediation theory explains variation across administrations but treats each regime’s orientation toward movements as relatively uniform; institutional channeling theory shows that state pathways reshape claims but does not specify how executives actively sort allied claimants into different pathways. This article identifies a connecting mechanism: portfolio routing, the process through which a sympathetic administration channels allied movements into institutional pathways that determine what outcomes are achievable. Drawing on 85 oral history interviews from the Obama Presidency Oral History archive, we trace how the White House routed LGBTQ claims through political-engagement infrastructure, including dedicated liaisons, senior champions, and inside-outside coordination, while routing climate claims through technocratic-policy infrastructure oriented toward regulatory procedure. The political-engagement portfolio amplified LGBTQ claims into durable legislative and constitutional victories; the technocratic portfolio absorbed climate claims into historically significant but reversible executive actions. The institutional pathway, not presidential sentiment, determined what movements won.

Author

• Neal Caren, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill