From Policy to Polity

2010/04/01 by Sarah K. Bruch, Myra Marx Ferree, Joe Soss · 228 citations
Social Sciences · #Agency (philosophy) #Democracy #Economics #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics #Law #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Polity #Public administration #Public economics #Public policy #Social Policy and Reform Studies #Social science #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1177/0003122410363563

published in American Sociological Review 75(2), 205-226 (SAGE Publishing)

openalex publication_date 2010/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22

Abstract

This article investigates how experiences with public policies affect levels of civic and political engagement among the poor. Studies of “policy feedback” investigate policies not just as political outcomes, but also as factors that set political forces in motion and shape political agency. To advance this literature, we take up three outstanding questions related to selection bias, the distinction between universal and targeted programs, and the types of authority relations most likely to foster engagement among the poor. Using a longitudinal dataset from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which follows a cohort of low-income parents and their newborn children in 20 U.S. cities, we estimate effects associated with three types of means-tested public assistance. We find that these policies’ effects are not an illusion created by selection bias; the effects of targeted programs can both promote and discourage engagement; and such effects tend to be more positive when a policy’s authority structure reflects democratic rather than paternalist principles.

Citations

• The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic Citizenship: Bridging Policy Studies and Mass Politics
• Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error

Cited by

• How Do Disadvantaged Groups Seek Information About Public Services? A Randomized Controlled Trial of Communication Technologies
• Policy Feedback in a Racialized Polity
• I paid into it with every paycheck I earned: How benefit type and beneficiary contributions shape attitudes about increasing or decreasing administrative burdens for social protections
• Administrative Burden’s Mass Political Effects: How the Administration of Medicaid and Elections Shapes Mass Voter Turnout
• Learning by proxy: How burdensome policies shape policy implementors' views of government
• Socializing Policy Feedback: The Long-Term Effects of Adolescent Program Participation on Adult Party Identification
• The interactive effects of policies: Insights for policy feedback theory from a qualitative study on homelessness
• Working Within a System of Administrative Burden: How Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Role Perceptions Shape Access to the Promise of Higher Education
• “It Takes a While to Get Used to”: The Costs of Redeeming Public Benefits
• Administrative Burden in Citizen–State Interactions: A Systematic Literature Review
• Administrative Burden: Learning, Psychological, and Compliance Costs in Citizen-State Interactions
• “It’s like a disconnection” – political skepticism among poor and working-class Black and Latine people
• How racialized policy contact shapes the social constructions of policy targets
• Policy Feedback Effects on Mass Publics: A Quantitative Review
• Local Control, Discretion, and Administrative Burden: SNAP Interview Waivers and Caseloads During the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Policymaking by Other Means
• In the Aftermath of the Storm: Administrative Burden in Disaster Recovery
• Timing Matters: How Adolescent Police Contact Shapes Political Lives
• What Do I Need to Vote? Bureaucratic Discretion and Discrimination by Local Election Officials
• Policy Makes Mass Politics
• The Political Economy of Administrative Burdens: A Theoretical Framework for Analyzing the Organizational Origins of Administrative Burdens
• "They need more programs for the kids:" Low-income mothers' views of government amidst economic precarity and burdensome programs. [europepmc]
• Court-mandated redistricting and disparities in infant mortality and deaths of despair. [europepmc]
• Local Control, Discretion, and Administrative Burden: SNAP Interview Waivers and Caseloads During the COVID-19 Pandemic [europepmc]

Related

• The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic Citizenship: Bridging Policy Studies and Mass Politics
• Policy Makes Mass Politics
• When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change
• Partisanship, Deservingness, and the Attitudinal Policy Feedback Process for Social Policy
• The Policy Feedback Effects of State Assistance: Did Small Business Bailouts Increase Support for Public Aid Programs?