Eric M. Patashnik's "Countermobilization"

Eric M. Patashnik is the Julis-Rabinowitz Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Brown University. He is the author or editor of several books, including Reforms at Risk.

Patashnik applied the “Page 99 Test” to his new book, Countermobilization: Policy Feedback and Backlash in a Polarized Age, and reported the following:

Page 99 provides a nice illustration of one of the central themes of the book: In modern American democracy, backlashes often occur when ordinary citizens see policy reforms as a threat to their interests, values, and the institutions to which they are strongly attached. Page 99 drops the reader in the middle of a detailed case study of the ferocious backlash against the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare). The backlash played out in multiple arenas, including Congress, state legislatures, and the Supreme Court. Page 99 discusses three public constituencies that participated in voter backlashes and grassroots protests against the law: working-class Americans who earned too much to be eligible for Medicaid and resented that other people were getting more assistance than they were; Republicans who were much less supportive of Obamacare than Democrats on both partisan and ideological grounds; and senior citizens who feared that the creation of an expensive new health care entitlement would threaten Medicare, an institution on which they relied for their financial security.

While page 99 captures a key theme of my argument, it does not provide an accurate sense of the book’s scope. The book identifies and analyzes a wide range of backlashes that have convulsed American political life since the 1960s, from the backlash against civil rights laws in the 1960s, to the backlash of social conservatives against Roe v. Wade in the 1970s and 1980s, to the backlash against the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s, to the backlashes against education reform, government surveillance, and gay rights in the 2000s. The book explains the conditions under which the mass public or organized groups are likely to rise up against enacted policies—and offers practical lessons to help identify and navigate backlash risks.

Learn more about Countermobilization at the University of Chicago Press website.

--Marshal Zeringue