Eric Patashnik

About

Eric M. Patashnik is the Julis-Rabinowitz Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, where he also serves as the Director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy. He is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Patashnik has held faculty positions at the University of Virginia, UCLA, and Yale University. His research focuses on the politics of policymaking, health policy, fiscal politics, policy reform, implementation, and the welfare state. He has authored and edited several books, including 'Countermobilization: Policy Feedback and Backlash in a Polarized Age' (2023), 'Unhealthy Politics: The Battle over Evidence-Based Medicine' (2017), 'Reforms at Risk' (2008), and 'Putting Trust in the US Budget' (2000). His articles have been published in leading journals such as Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Politics, and Health Affairs. Patashnik has received awards including the Louis Brownlow Book Award and the Don K. Price Book Award. He has served as president of the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association, editor of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, and held various administrative roles at Brown and the University of Virginia. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Business
• Law
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Economics
• Computer Science
• Public economics
• Nursing
• Medicine

Selected publications

• Countermobilization

  2023-01-01 · 34 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Policy Analysis and Political Sustainability

  Policy Studies Journal · 2020 · 31 citations

  1st authorCorresponding

  Policies usually have to be sustained for a substantial period of time to have their intended impact, but they may face a number of important political challenges after enactment that can result in their repeal or erosion. These challenges follow recurrent patterns and frequently can be predicted in advance, at least in their broad parameters. Policy analysts should, therefore, consider political sustainability as an important criterion in designing policies and evaluating policy alternatives. D…

  DOI

• Backlash Politics in America's Disunited and Polarized State

  Studies in American Political Development · 2022-08-04 · 16 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The policy feedback literature developed in an era in which the level of polarization and the intensity of party competition were far lower than today. These background conditions narrowed the scope of many policy debates and facilitated the consolidation of programmatic expansions after their enactment. As a result, the feedback literature emphasized the ways that new policies build supportive constituencies and become entrenched. While the core insight that policies can generate major…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Unhealthy Politics

  Princeton University Press eBooks · 2020-07-07 · 2 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  The U.S. medical system is touted as the most advanced in the world, yet many common treatments are not based on sound science. This book sheds new light on why the government's response to this troubling situation has been so inadequate, and why efforts to improve the evidence base of U.S. medicine continue to cause so much political controversy. The book paints a portrait of a medical industry with vast influence over which procedures and treatments get adopted, and a public burdened by the ri…

  PublisherDOI

• After Defeat: Conservative Postenactment Opposition to the ACA in Historical-Institutional Perspective

  UNC Libraries · 2025-09-06

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, conservatives have sought to undermine the law's entrenchment. While they have failed in their ambitious quest to repeal the ACA, opponents have succeeded in overturning one major provision (the individual mandate penalty), narrowing the law's reach, complicating its implementation, and fomenting doubts about its political sustainability. This essay places the postenactment battle over the ACA in historical-institutional perspective b…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Alan S. Gerber

  Yale University

  45 shared

• Conor M. Dowling

  32 shared

• Justin Peck

  Wesleyan University

  7 shared

• David Doherty

  Loyola University Chicago

  6 shared

• Julian E. Zelizer

  5 shared

• Ann Carlson

  National PKU Alliance

  3 shared

• Colleen M. Grogan

  University of Chicago

  3 shared

• Mackenzie Lockhart

  Yale University

  2 shared

Labs

• Taubman Center for American Politics and PolicyPI

Awards & honors

• Louis Brownlow Book Award of the National Academy of Public…
• Don K. Price Book Award of the American Political Science As…
• APSA's Outstanding Public Engagement Award (2025)

Similar researchers at Brown University

• Robert Blairh-28
• Michael Kennedyh-19
• Prerna Singhh-17