Advocacy groups, policy subsidies, and policy change: The case of teacher evaluations

Abstract

How are powerful interest groups with a stake in the status quo overcome? Policymakers succeed in enacting policies against the preferences of powerful vested interests when they delegate the costs associated with challenging those vested interests to advocacy groups. Advocacy groups can provide information and capacity, freeing allied policymakers from relying on vested interests. Using a 50‐state regression analysis of teacher evaluation policymaking in 2010 and 2011 and case studies of the experiences of Minnesota and Wisconsin, I find evidence that where advocacy groups assist policymaker allies, they can successfully pass and implement policy change against the preferences of powerful vested interests.