“It Happened Behind Closed Doors”: Legislative Buffering as an Informal Mechanism of Political Mediation

Abstract

The political mediation model explains movement policy outcomes ranging from complete failure to total success. However, the qualitative mechanisms through which political mediation occurs empirically remain understudied, especially as they relate to the content-specifying stages of the legislative process. Furthermore, while we know that political mediation is context dependent, key elements of what political context entails remain underspecified. This article addresses these gaps by tracing the influence of a coalition of social movement organizations (SMOs) seeking to simultaneously shape the content of two major climate bills in a progressive U.S. state where the climate movement enjoys a relatively favorable political context overall. Comparing the divergent trajectories and outcomes of the two bills illuminates the process of legislative buffering, which is conceptualized as an informal mechanism of political mediation. The comparative analysis also reveals situational elements of political context that can present additional hurdles movements must overcome to maximize their success.

Leveraging the insights of depth: A staged strategy for building qualitative case studies of American state‐level policy

“…Case studies can also uncover additional state governing structures that impact policy outcomes, which researchers have yet to consider. Basseches (2019), for example, finds that informal law-making powers of state party leaders in Massachusetts directly shaped environmental policy outcomes.…”

“…Research on some of the biggest problems of our time, such as voting rights, climate change, or mass incarceration, have taken advantage of the variation between states to identify causes of stasis or change (e.g., Campbell and Schoenfeld 2013; Bentele and O'Brien 2013). Sociologists have used state level data to develop and test sociological theories as well, including social movement theory (e.g., Basseches 2019; King, Cornwall, and Dahlin 2005), theories of punishment (e.g., Campbell, Vogel, and Williams 2015; Duxbury 2021), and theories of inequality (e.g., Lobao and Hooks 2007).…”

“…In addition to incorporating interviewee information in the case study narrative, researchers should use the third stage to make sure they understand which formal and informal political and institutional state structures are pertinent to their policy outcome of interest. Some of these may be specifically mentioned by interviewees, such as “the Speaker of the House in the state must approve every piece of Republican‐sponsored legislation,” others may be implicit, such as the realization from talking to many people that the only bills that make it to the floor are the ones the Speaker of the House has informally blessed (Basseches 2019).…”

Climate policy conflict in the U.S. states: a critical review and way forward

“…Formal powers are in part a product of other institutional arrangements, such as the presence or absence of term limits (Carey et al 2006;Mooney 2012;Shay 2020). Basseches (2019) shows that the concentration of institutional power in the hands of majority party leadership, even when the majority party is Democratic, facilitates access and influence for business actors while limiting it for environmental groups.…”

“…Although many states have adopted climate policies, there remain significant obstacles to passing strong and effective state-level climate policies rather than merely symbolic policies that set goals without mandates or that do not include penalties for noncompliance (Stokes 2020). Even in liberal states without significant fossil fuel production, policy efforts often fail to meet their emission reduction targets (Basseches 2019;Culhane et al 2021). While there has been a proliferation of research on state-level climate and energy policy since the mid-2000s, scholarship using politics as an organizing, theoretical frame has only exploded in the last few years, making a synthesis geared toward this question of political obstacles quite timely (Woods 2021).…”