A01=Andrea Louise Campbell
AARP
Activism
Advocacy group
Amendment
Americans
Author_Andrea Louise Campbell
Calculation
Category=JBSP4
Category=JPW
Citizens (Spanish political party)
Citizenship
Congressional district
Democracy
Dummy variable (statistics)
Economics
Employment
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Family income
Funding
Government
Household
Income
Indexation
Insurance
Legislation
Legislator
Mandatory retirement
Medicaid
Member of Congress
Middle class
Multivariate analysis
Of Education
Participant
Participation (decision making)
Payment
Payroll tax
Pension
Percentage
Policy
Policy entrepreneur
Political campaign
Political efficacy
Political party
Political science
Politician
Politics
Politics of the United States
Poverty
Privatization
Public policy
Republican Party (United States)
Respondent
Retirement
Retirement age
Saving
Sidney Verba
Skill
Social class
Social policy
Social Security Act
Social Security Administration
Social Security Benefits
Supplemental Security Income
Tax
Theda Skocpol
Unemployment
United States House Committee on Ways and Means
Voter turnout
Voting
Welfare
Welfare state
Workforce
Working class
Year
Product details
- ISBN 9780691122502
- Weight: 369g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 13 Feb 2005
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Some groups participate in politics more than others. Why? And does it matter for policy outcomes? In this richly detailed and fluidly written book, Andrea Campbell argues that democratic participation and public policy powerfully reinforce each other. Through a case study of senior citizens in the United States and their political activity around Social Security, she shows how highly participatory groups get their policy preferences fulfilled, and how public policy itself helps create political inequality. Using a wealth of unique survey and historical data, Campbell shows how the development of Social Security helped transform seniors from the most beleaguered to the most politically active age group. Thus empowered, seniors actively defend their programs from proposed threats, shaping policy outcomes. The participatory effects are strongest for low-income seniors, who are most dependent on Social Security. The program thus reduces political inequality within the senior population--a laudable effect--while increasing inequality between seniors and younger citizens. A brief look across policies shows that program effects are not always positive.
Welfare recipients are even less participatory than their modest socioeconomic backgrounds would imply, because of the demeaning and disenfranchising process of proving eligibility. Campbell concludes that program design profoundly shapes the nature of democratic citizenship. And proposed policies--such as Social Security privatization--must be evaluated for both their economic and political effects, because the very quality of democratic government is influenced by the kinds of policies it chooses.
Andrea Louise Campbell is Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard University. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy at Yale University from 2001-2003.
