Martha Derthick's Policymaking for Social Security is a great work of political analysis—one of the best studies of the politics of public policy ever produced. Written a quarter-century ago, the argument remains fresh and compelling today—fresher, in fact, than most policy work produced more recently. Indeed, what is striking in revisiting this wonderful book is how Derthick beautifully explores some themes that are only now reasserting themselves in the discipline and commanding the attention of political scientists.

Policymaking has many virtues—and it is notable how different readers are drawn to different elements of this rich piece of scholarship. To me, the outstanding feature of this study—what gives it the capacity to generate keen insights about politics—is its treatment of its subject matter as a case of policy development. Most work in political science, if it deals with policy at all, treats the enactment of policies (“the policy outcome”) as the end of the story. The focus of inquiry is on how to explain the passage of big pieces of legislation. Yet for Derthick, this is where the story begins. Hers is a study of Social Security, the cornerstone of the New Deal and the most politically successful policy in modern American history. Yet Derthick's inquiry begins immediately after the enactment of this landmark legislation. In one of my favorite passages, Derthick stresses that

By treating Social Security as a case of policy development, Derthick is able to explore three themes that contribute to a rich work of political analysis. First, she can pay exquisite attention to the evolving roles of key political actors over an extended period of time. Ranging from civil servants to interest group representatives to elected officials, Derthick explores the formation of their (nonobvious and sometimes shifting) perceptions of their interests, their developing preferences over policy, and the diverse and often unappreciated sources of their political influence. Second, she is able to explore in considerable detail the development of key features of this complex public policy, and thus demonstrate convincingly how these details can have profound reverberations. Arcane and complex features of policy, often produced far from the political limelight, have a tremendous capacity to refashion politics. And third, Derthick is able to explore the changing character of Social Security itself over an extended period of time. In other words, Derthick emphasizes that the program itself was not fixed in place by the landmark Social Security Act. Social Security instead is both stable and changing—it remains recognizably itself while undergoing dramatic expansions and alterations over a period of decades.

For Derthick, all these themes combine to lay bare something that conventional, “snapshot” accounts of public policy typically miss: the formidable role of high level bureaucrats in shaping the activities of government. Social Security is built over a period of decades, as the details of policy are worked out, and as various incremental expansions are undertaken. At each stage, Derthick argues, civil servants were at the forefront of setting the agenda for programmatic development and in specifying the alternatives that elected officials came to consider. As in John Kingdon's famous work on agenda-setting, Derthick emphasizes that the more visible moments of decision are preceded by extended periods of arduous but quiet labor that lays the groundwork for these reforms, and to a large extent sets their parameters. At the heart of these painstaking efforts are the high-level civil servants, who during their long tenures in the Social Security Administration were able to develop their reputations for expertise, nurture ideas for program expansion, and cultivate ties to important social groups and elected officials. Over time they expanded their capacity to exercise political power, even though that exercise was rarely visible. Indeed, this considerable political influence would be almost impossible to identify in an analysis that simply focused on moments of significant legislation.

Although it covers different empirical terrain and uses a different research design Derthick's analysis contains striking parallels to Daniel Carpenter's marvelous recent book The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy (2001). Like Derthick, Carpenter transforms the standard question from one about policy selection to one about policy development. By doing so, he effectively undercuts the now conventional view, which holds that congressional “principals” have sufficient political resources to assure the acquiescence of their bureaucratic “agents.” Carpenter persuasively demonstrates how these analyses substantially underestimate the potential for bureaucratic autonomy because they adopt a cross-sectional approach to studying what should be understood as a long-term process of policy development. Under the right conditions, ambitious and entrepreneurial bureaucrats were able over extended periods of time to enhance their reputations for innovativeness and competence, and develop strong networks of support among a range of social actors. These achievements created a context in which Congress, facing pressure from below and deferring to the expertise of leading bureaucrats, essentially asked for what the bureaucrats wanted. Viewed as a moment in time, one sees what looks like congressional dominance; viewed as a process unfolding over time, the same cross-sectional evidence provides indications of substantial bureaucratic autonomy.

Indeed, reexamined after a quarter-century, it is remarkable the extent to which Policymaking for Social Security effectively explores many of the issues that are becoming central to the recent resurgence of interest in institutional and policy development. Like Kathleen Thelen's new work in comparative political economy (2004), Derthick helps us understand that institutional evolution is simultaneously a story of change and continuity. Like Jacob Hacker's analysis of the development of public and private social welfare in the United States (2002), Derthick demonstrates how private interests are a product of policy structures as well as a source of those structures. And, like Eric Patashnik's work on major “public interest” reforms (2003), Derthick draws our attention to the tremendous significance of quiet political processes that unfold after the curtain falls on the high drama of legislative enactments. She has written a book about the long-run, and it is especially fitting that the book itself stands up so well to the test of time.