IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v110y2016i04p763-777_00.html

Do Politicians Use Policy to Make Politics? The Case of Public-Sector Labor Laws

Author

Listed:
  • ANZIA, SARAH F.
  • MOE, TERRY M.

Abstract

Schattschneider's insight that “policies make politics” has played an influential role in the modern study of political institutions and public policy. Yet if policies do indeed make politics, rational politicians have opportunities to use policies to structure future politics to their own advantage—and this strategic dimension has gone almost entirely unexplored. Do politicians actually use policies to make politics? Under what conditions? In this article, we develop a theoretical argument about what can be expected from strategic politicians, and we carry out an empirical analysis on a policy development that is particularly instructive: the adoption of public-sector collective bargaining laws by the states during the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s—laws that fueled the rise of public-sector unions, and “made politics” to the advantage of Democrats over Republicans.

Suggested Citation

  • Anzia, Sarah F. & Moe, Terry M., 2016. "Do Politicians Use Policy to Make Politics? The Case of Public-Sector Labor Laws," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(4), pages 763-777, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:110:y:2016:i:04:p:763-777_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055416000484/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jeffrey Clemens & Michael R. Strain, 2020. "Public Policy and Participation in Political Interest Groups: An Analysis of Minimum Wages, Labor Unions, and Effective Advocacy," NBER Working Papers 27902, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jason Coupet, 2025. "To make or buy commercialization: A synthetic control approach," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 44(1), pages 183-207, January.
    3. Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, 2019. "Asymmetric Partisan Polarization, Labor Policy, and Cross-State Political Power-Building," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 685(1), pages 64-79, September.
    4. David Macdonald, 2023. "Public attitudes toward organized labor," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 104(4), pages 581-590, July.
    5. Eric M. Patashnik, 2019. "Limiting Policy Backlash: Strategies for Taming Countercoalitions in an Era of Polarization," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 685(1), pages 47-63, September.
    6. Opoku-Agyemang, Kweku A., 2017. "Does Opening Complaints Data Change Company and Consumer Behavior? Evidence from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau," SocArXiv fa7v9, Center for Open Science.
    7. repec:aei:rpaper:1008580847 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Ren Bin & Lin Yi & Li Xing-Ping, 2025. "Pathways to Progress: Regulation Transformation and Social Security Enhancement in China," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(3), pages 21582440251, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:110:y:2016:i:04:p:763-777_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.