Policy Feedback

PSJ 54/3 2026-08-07 Original Supply‐Side Policy Feedback Isabel M. Perera Abstract ABSTRACT The scholarship on policy feedback has been among the most plentiful and successful of the policy sciences. Much of it has focused on the demand‐side, or on the political relationship between a public policy and its recipients. Less attention has been paid to the supply‐side: the political relationship between a public policy and its providers. Parents may care about education, patients about health care, and prisoners about criminal justice—but an emerging literature shows that teachers, hospital employees, and the police care just as, if not more, about these areas. This article builds on new work to introduce a theory of supply‐side policy feedback and outline a research agenda for its further investigation.

PSJ — 2026-04-26 Original Partisanship, Deservingness, and the Attitudinal Policy Feedback Process for Social Policy Chris Faricy, Christopher Ellis Abstract ABSTRACT In an era of identity‐based partisan polarization, we examine whether social policies can still generate positive attitudinal feedback among beneficiaries. Drawing on nationally representative survey data, we demonstrate that partisanship conditions the policy feedback process through divergent perceptions of group deservingness. Democrats attribute economic vulnerability to systemic injustice and view policy beneficiaries as hardworking and sympathetic, while Republicans attribute poverty to individual failings and view beneficiaries more negatively. We show that Democrats evaluate both policy beneficiaries and taxpayers favorably, whereas Republicans sharply differentiate between these groups, viewing themselves as “makers” contributing to a system that benefits undeserving “takers.” These differences shape emotional responses to program use with Democrats reporting positive feelings about using social policies, while Republicans express more negative emotions. Even after controlling for actual policy usage and demographics, partisan gaps in attitudes toward social programs persist across diverse policy types. Experimental evidence reveals that partisan framing affects non‐users more than beneficiaries, with Democrats more responsive to group‐based cues. Our findings suggest that in American politics, partisan identities serve as powerful interpretive filters that prevent similar policy experiences from generating widespread positive political attitudes, thereby challenging the assumption that policies create new politics.

JOP 88/2 pp. 888-892 2026-04-01 Original Between Withdrawal and Engagement: Disentangling the Effects of COVID-19 on Turnout Kevin T. Morris Abstract This project marks the first test of the household-level turnout effects of living with someone who died from COVID-19. Drawing on policy feedback and threat literatures, I argue that the theoretical effects of close COVID contact are unclear. I link death records with the registered voter file to identity Americans who lived with a decedent, leveraging a triple-differences design to distinguish the effect of household COVID deaths on turnout from non-COVID ones in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Washington State. Household COVID deaths reduced turnout in all three states, though the effect was different (and larger) than non-COVID household deaths only in Washington. I thus conclude that while COVID deaths clearly lowered household turnout, they operated largely through the opportunity costs associated with household deaths more generally rather than a distinctly political response to the government’s handling of the pandemic.

PSJ — 2026-03-15 Original Can Money Buy Trust? Social Transfers and Trust During the Covid‐19 Pandemic

PSJ — 2026-03-12 Original Cities Creating Citizens: Policy Feedback and the Effects of Local Naturalization Support on Immigrant Civic Engagement Megan Dias Abstract ABSTRACT Despite an increasingly hostile federal stance towards immigrants, cities across the United States have passed policies and implemented programs that help eligible immigrants on their path to citizenship. This paper examines the effects of these local policies on immigrants' political behavior and sense of civic efficacy. Using a multi‐method approach combining national survey data with qualitative interviews and a survey of participants from the City of San Francisco's Pathways to Citizenship Initiative, it finds that receiving local naturalization support affects the way immigrants behave and understand themselves as citizens. Immigrants who received support from their city government through the naturalization process have higher levels of political engagement and civic efficacy than those who navigated the process alone. These findings extend policy feedback to the local level, showing how local policies produce effects for target populations within a conflicting federal context. They have implications for our understanding of policy feedback more broadly, and the role local governments play in helping immigrants become full citizens and political actors.