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AbstractLeading accounts of the politics of the welfare state focus on societal demands for risk-spreading policies. Yet current measures of the welfare state focus not on risk, but on inequality. To address this gap, this letter describes the development of two new measures,risk incidenceandrisk reduction, which correspond to the prevalence of large income losses and the degree to which welfare states reduce that prevalence, respectively. Unlike existing indicators, these measures require panel data, which the authors harmonize for twenty-one democracies. The study finds that large losses affect all income and education levels, making the welfare state valuable to a broad cross-section of citizens. It also finds that taxes and transfers greatly reduce the prevalence of such losses, though to varying degrees across countries and over time. Finally, it disaggregates the measures to identify specific 'triggers' of large losses, and finds that these triggers are associated with risks on which welfare states focus, such as unemployment and sickness.

A large body of research has explored how policies, once enacted, reshape public opinion, governing institutions, and political organizations—a process known as "policy feedback." Yet this productive research agenda has yet to be translated into practical recommendations of the sort regularly provided by other social science research. This volume of The ANNALS presents the findings of a major collective effort to do just this. The Policy Feedback Project (PFP) is an effort to develop research-backed arguments about how policy feedback might be harnessed to address collective problems in today's age of partisan polarization and economic inequality. This article orients readers to our collective approach and summarizes some of the contributing authors' findings. In particular, we show how the feedback effects of policies could be used to (1) tackle long-standing public problems that have resisted effective responses, (2) increase the long-term durability of policy initiatives designed to address these problems, and (3) build political momentum and power to facilitate the adaptation and expansion of these initiatives over time.

Drawing on the pioneering work of Anthony Downs, political scientists have tended to characterize American politics as a game among undifferentiated competitors, played out largely through elections, with outcomes reflecting how formal rules translate election results into legislative votes. In this perspective, voters, campaigns, elections, and the ideological distribution of legislators merit extensive scrutiny. Other features of the political environment—most notably, the policies these legislators help create and the interest groups that struggle over these policies—are deemed largely peripheral. However, contemporary politics often looks very different than the world described by Downs. Instead, it more closely resembles the world depicted by E. E. Schattschneider—a world in which policy and groups loom large, the influence of voters is highly conditional, and the key struggle is not over gaining office but over reshaping governance. Over the last twenty years, a growing body of scholarship has emerged that advances this corrective vision—an approach we call "policy-focused political science." In this framework, politics is centrally about the exercise of government authority for particular substantive purposes. Such exercises of authority create the "terrain" for political struggle, profoundly shaping both individual and group political behavior. More important, because policies can be so consequential, they also serve as the "prize" for many of the most enduring political players, especially organized interest groups. The payoffs of a policy-focused perspective include a more accurate portrayal of the institutional environment of modern politics, an appreciation for the fundamental importance of organized groups, a better understanding of the dynamics of policy change, and a more accurate mapping of interests, strategies, and influence. These benefits are illustrated through brief examinations of two of the biggest changes in American politics over the last generation: asymmetric partisan polarization and the growing concentration of income at the top.

Presidents shape the economy; the economy shapes presidencies. Yet analyses of presidential influence over the economy usually examine this interplay through an excessively narrow focus: the ability of presidents to shape short‐term economic outcomes, particularly as these affect their own reelection prospects. Here, drawing on work in comparative political economy, we ask about the capacity of presidents to influence long‐term economic developments, particularly the degree to which the economy produces broadly distributed growth. Focusing on the transformation of American tax policy over the last generation, we stress the constraints and opportunities that come from "durable policy coalitions" of partisans, activists, and organized economic interests seeking enduring shifts in governance. We develop this argument in part through a contrast with the influential views of Larry Bartels, who claims that presidents have a powerful immediate impact on economic inequality. We suggest that presidents are generally much more constrained, while attempting to clarify when and how they make a difference.