The Politics of Policy Change: Welfare, Medicare, and Social Security Reform in the United States

For generations, debating the expansion or contraction of the American welfare state has produced some of the nation's most heated legislative battles. Attempting social policy reform is both risky and complicated, especially when it involves dealing with powerful vested interests, sharp ideological disagreements, and a nervous public. The main goals of this book are to improve our understanding of the politics of policy change and to develop a framework to better explain specific policy outcomes in contemporary federal politics. Béland and Waddan pay close attention to the role of ideas when explaining the motivations for and obstacles to policy change. The book argues that "ideas matter" but also seeks to explain how they matter. In order to help deepen our understanding of these processes and to explain specific outcomes, Béland and Waddan use their framework to analyze three case studies: welfare reform in 1996, Medicare reform in 2003, and the failed attempt to privatize Social Security in 2005.