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.
AveryJames M.PeffleyMark. 2005. “Voter Registration Requirements, Voter Turnout, and Welfare Eligibility Policy: Class Bias Matters.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly5:47–67.
2.
CampbellAndrea Louise. 2003. How Policies Make Citizens: Senior Political Activism and the American Welfare State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
3.
CampbellAndrea Louise. 2007. “Universalism, Targeting, and Participation.” Pp. 121–40 in Remaking America: Democracy and Public Policy in an Age of Inequality, edited by SossJ.HackerJ. S.MettlerS.New York: Russell Sage.
4.
ChoWendy K. TamGimpelJames G.DyckJoshua J.2006. “Residential Concentration, Political Socialization, and Voter Turnout.” Journal of Politics68:156–67.
5.
CohenCathy J.DawsonMichael C.1993. “Neighborhood Poverty and African American Politics.” American Political Science Review87:286–302.
6.
FernandezRoberto M.SuCelina. 2004. “Space in the Study of Labor Markets.” Annual Review of Sociology30:545–69.
7.
FreemanRichard B.2004. “What, Me Vote?” Pp. 703–28 in Social Inequality, edited by NeckermanK.New York: Russell Sage.
8.
FrymerPaul. 1999. Uneasy Alliance: Race and Party Competition in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
9.
GordonLinda. 1994. Pitied but Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare. New York: Free Press.
10.
GordonLinda. 2002. “Who Deserves Help? Who Must Provide?” Pp. 9–25 in Lost Ground: Welfare Reform, Poverty, and Beyond, edited by AlbeldaR.WithornA.Boston, MA: South End Press.
11.
GroggerJeffreyKarolyLynn A.2005. Welfare Reform: Effects of a Decade of Change. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
12.
HandlerJoel F.HasenfeldYeheskel. 2007. Blame Welfare, Ignore Poverty and Inequality. New York: Cambridge University Press.
13.
HaysSharon. 2003. Flat Broke with Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform. New York: Oxford University Press.
14.
HeckmanJames J.1979. “Sample Selection Bias as a Specification Error.” Econometrica47:153–61.
15.
HowardChristopher. 2006. The Welfare State Nobody Knows: Debunking Myths about U.S. Social Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
16.
HuckfeldtRobert. 1979. “Political Participation and Neighborhood Context.” American Journal of Political Science23:579–92.
17.
HuckfeldtRobert. 1986. Politics in Context: Assimilation and Conflict in Urban Neighborhoods. New York: Agathon.
18.
KeyV. O.1949. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: Knopf.
19.
KumlinStaffan. 2004. The Personal and the Political: How Personal Welfare State Experiences Affect Political Trust and Ideology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
20.
KumlinStaffanRothsteinBo. 2005. “Making and Breaking Social Capital: The Impact of Welfare-State Institutions.” Comparative Political Studies38:339–65.
21.
LawlessJennifer L.FoxRichard L.2001. “Political Participation of the Urban Poor.” Social Problems48:362–85.
22.
LeighleyJan E.VedlitzArnold. 1999. “Race, Ethnicity and Political Participation: Competing Models and Contrasting Explanations.” Journal of Politics61:1092–1114.
23.
LiebermanRobert C.2001. Shifting the Color Line: Race and the American Welfare State. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
24.
MarshallT. H.1964. Class, Citizenship, and Social Development. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday.
25.
MeadLawrence M.1986. Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship. New York: Free Press.
26.
MeadLawrence M.1998. “Telling the Poor What to Do.” The Public Interest132:97–112.
27.
MeadLawrence M.2001. “Review of Unwanted Claims: The Politics of Participation in the U.S. Welfare System by Joe Soss.” Political Science Quarterly116:675–77.
28.
MeadLawrence M.2004. “The Great Passivity: Commentary on APSA Task Force Report.” Perspectives on Politics2:671–75.
29.
MeadLawrence M.2005. Government Matters: Welfare Reform in Wisconsin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
30.
MeadLawrenceBeemChristopher, eds. 2005. Welfare Reform and Political Theory. New York: Russell Sage.
31.
MettlerSuzanne. 1998. Dividing Citizens: Gender and Federalism in New Deal Public Policy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
32.
MettlerSuzanne. 2005. Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation. New York: Oxford University Press.
33.
MettlerSuzanne B.SossJoe. 2004. “The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic Citizenship.” Perspectives on Politics2:55–73.
34.
MettlerSuzanne B.StonecashJeffrey M.2008. “Government Program Usage and Political Voice.” Social Science Quarterly89:273–93.
35.
MinkGwendolyn. 1998. Welfare’s End. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
36.
MoffittRobert. 1992. “Incentive Effects of the U.S. Welfare System: A Review.” Journal of Economic Literature30:1–61.
37.
NelsonBarbara. 1990. “The Origins of the Two-Channel Welfare State: Workmen’s Compensation and Mothers’ Aid.” Pp. 123–51 in Women, the State and Welfare, edited by GordonL.Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
38.
NiemiRichard G.HepburnMary A.1995. “The Rebirth of Political Socialization.” Perspectives on Political Science24:7–16.
39.
OrloffAnn. 1996. “Gender in the Welfare State.” Annual Review of Sociology22:51–78.
40.
OyemadeUraWashingtonValoraGulloDominic. 1989. “The Relationship between Head Start Parental Involvement and the Economic and Social Self-Sufficiency of Head Start Families.” Journal of Negro Education58:5–15.
41.
ParkerF.PiotrowskiC. S.PeayL.1987. “Head Start as a Social Support for Mothers: The Psychological Benefits of Involvement.” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry57:220–33.
42.
PatemanCarole. 1970. Participation and Democratic Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press.
43.
PiersonPaul. 1993. “When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change.” World Politics45:595–628.
44.
PiersonPaul. 2006. “Public Policies as Institutions.” Pp. 114–31 in Rethinking Political Institutions: The Art of the State, edited by ShapiroI.SkowronekS.GalvinD.New York: New York University Press.
45.
PivenFrances FoxClowardRichard A.[1971] 1993. Regulating the Poor: The Functions of Public Welfare. New York: Vintage Books.
PivenFrances FoxClowardRichard A.2000. Why Americans Still Don’t Vote: And Why Politicians Want It That Way. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
48.
PizzoPeggy DalyTufankjianElizabeth Edwards. 2004. “A Persistent Pattern of Progress: Parent Outcomes in Longitudinal Studies of Head Start Children and Families.” Pp. 193–214 in The Head Start Debates, edited by ZiglerE.StyfcoS. J.Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing.
49.
QuadagnoJill. 1996. The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty. New York: Oxford University Press.
50.
RadcliffBenjaminDavisPatricia. 2000. “Labor Organization and Electoral Participation in Industrial Democracies.” American Journal of Political Science44:132–41.
51.
ReichmanNancyTeitlerJulienGarfinkelIrwinMcLanahanSara. 2001. “Fragile Families: Sample and Design.” Children and Youth Services Review23:303–26.
52.
RosenstoneStephen J.HansenJohn Mark. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
53.
SapiroVirginia. 1994. “Political Socialization during Adulthood: Clarifying the Political Time of Our Lives.” Research in Micropolitics4:197–223.
54.
SchattschneiderE. E.1960. The Semi-sovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
55.
SchneiderAnne L.IngramHelen. 1997. Policy Design for Democracy. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.
56.
SchramSanford F.SossJoeFordingRichard C.HouserLinda. 2009. “Deciding to Discipline: Race, Choice, and Punishment at the Frontlines of Welfare Reform.” American Sociological Review74:398–422.
57.
SearsDavid O.1990. “Whither Political Socialization Research? The Question of Persistence.” Pp. 69–97 in Political Socialization, Citizenship Education, and Democracy, edited by IchilovO.New York: Teachers College Press.
58.
ShapiroIan. 1999. Democratic Justice. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
59.
SkocpolTheda. 1991. “Targeting within Universalism: Politically Viable Policies to Combat Poverty in the United States.” Pp. 411–36 in The Urban Underclass, edited by JencksC.PetersonP. E.Washington, DC: Brookings.
60.
SossJoe. 2000. Unwanted Claims: The Politics of Participation in the U.S. Welfare System. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
61.
SossJoe. 2005. “Making Clients and Citizens: Welfare Policy as a Source of Status, Belief, and Action.” Pp. 291–328 in Deserving and Entitled: Social Constructions of Public Policy, edited by SchneiderA. L.IngramH. M.Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
62.
SossJoeFordingRichard C.SchramSanford F.2008. “The Color of Devolution: Race, Federalism, and the Politics of Social Control.” American Journal of Political Science52:536–53.
63.
SvallforsStefan. 2007. The Political Sociology of the Welfare State: Institutions, Social Cleavages, and Orientations. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
64.
UggenChristopherManzaJeff. 2006. Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.
65.
VerbaSidneySchlozmanKay LehmanBradyHenry E.1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
66.
WeaverR. Kent. 2000. Ending Welfare As We Knew It. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
67.
WeirMargaretOrloffAnn SholaSkocpolTheda. 1988. The Politics of Social Policy in the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
