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C H A P T E R F I V E Changing the Calculation: Policy Incrementalism and Political Participation It is difficult to draw a man out of his own circle to interest him in the destiny of the state. . . . But if it is proposed to make a road cross the end of his estate, he will see at a glance that there is a connection between this small public affair and his greatest private affairs. . . . Thus far more may be done by entrusting to the citizens the administration of minor affairs than by surrendering to them in the control of important ones. —Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America1 SOCIALIZING THE COSTS OF PARTICIPATION, and personalizing the benefits, are two ways by which issue advocates can expand political conflict to their advantage. This chapter considers a third mechanism: increasing the expected value of social benefits relative to the expected value of personal costs. The individual’s cost-benefit assessment improves when he calculates that a minor investment of political resources (individual costs) will produce the desired policy outcome (social benefits). This is what I have termed the participation payoff. In a decentralized, fragmented democracy , an expected participation payoff is increased when social-movement organizations pursue policy incrementalism: small policy steps that might be expected to aggregate toward ever larger political goals. In the United States, all bona fide social movements have proceeded incrementally. Perhaps the most important reason that gun control has never generated a mass movement is that gun control advocates spurned incrementalism in favor of a “rational national” strategy of policy change. The rational-national strategy favored bold, comprehensive, nation-spanning gun control laws that offered little opportunity for broad-based participation . The alternative—incrementalism—is significantly more conducive to movement building. Vertical incrementalism—the process of making policy at lower levels of government and allowing those successes to in- fluence policy making at higher levels—is particularly important in federalist systems, in which policy-making authority is decentralized. Horizontal incrementalism—expanding the scope or severity of an existing 146 • Chapter Five body of law—is particularly suited to democracies characterized by interest -group pluralism, porous and fragmented institutional structures, highly competitive parties, and classical liberal political cultures. The Founding Fathers designed the U.S. system, with its separation of powers and checks and balances, precisely to stymie swift, bold policy change. In short, incrementalism may be the only strategy that has a chance of succeeding in the United States, at least in normal times. Strictly speaking, incrementalism refers to policy making, not participation . However, the gun control case shows that there is a clear link between the policy-making strategies that advocates embrace and the scope and duration of popular participation they might expect. Incrementalism encourages participation by bolstering individuals’ sense of collective ef- ficacy. People participate when they are reasonably hopeful that their participation will contribute to a desired outcome. To calculate that probability , rational individuals not only assess the (prospective) probability of the activity’s success should they join, but also the (retrospective) record of success when others have been involved. To attract participants, then, advocates need to demonstrate that their efforts have momentum: past successes snowballing into probable future successes. In other words, to gain strength, movements need already to be moving. Incrementalism encourages conflict expansion by favorably altering the perception of organizational momentum, both past and future, thereby increasing the estimated benefit/cost ratio of individual participation. In sum, policy incrementalism encourages popular political participation; rational-national policy agendas discourage it. They are movement constraining. The gun control case elucidates an important dynamic in contemporary America: “the policy-politics paradox.” Advocates for sociopolitical reform often face an agonizing trade-off between pursuing legislation that would work (“good policy”) and political strategies that would be effective in securing that legislation (“good politics”). Although sensible policy and smart politics should go hand in hand, in fragmented democracies these goals are more typically at odds. Good policy makes for bad politics; good politics makes for bad policy.2 In the face of this policy-politics paradox , gun control supporters opted for sound policy, in effect forgoing a movement-building strategy in the interest of moral and ideological purity . Gun rights supporters, on the other hand, put politics above policy ideals. They systematically chipped away at gun regulations to achieve the comprehensive result they ultimately desired. Thus, gun rights advocates pursued a politics-driven strategy that has largely...

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