States are much more likely to abandon policies if similar programs have already failed in other states, according to new research published in State Politics & Policy Quarterly, a journal of the American Political Science Association.

The findings indicate that the likelihood to abandon a policy in the early stages depends greatly on the state’s political structure.  

“States learn from one another’s policy failures, but only if they have highly professional state legislatures,” explains author Craig Volden, professor and Associate Dean at the University of Virginia Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. “Citizen legislatures, like that of Virginia, miss out on such learning benefits.”

Previous research has established the diffusion and widespread adoption of successful policies across states. State legislatures act as policy laboratories for both other states and the federal government. The federal government, for example, is more likely to look into and implement policy if it has proven successful on a subnational level.

But no prior research had established the connection between a state’s failed policy and the abandonment of similar policy elsewhere. Volden hypothesized that there might be a link between the two. He surmised that state governments are apt to abandon existing policies or policy initiatives if similar policies have already proven unsuccessful elsewhere.

To test the hypothesis, Volden explored the likelihood of a state to abandon failing welfare-to-work policies between the years 1997 and 2002. During this time period, states introduced many policies to support the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, launched in the welfare reforms of 1996. States experimented with several forms of legislation that would encourage individuals to enter the workforce.

Volden analyzed pairs of the 50 states that had enacted similar welfare-to-work policies. He found that a state was, in fact, more likely to abandon a policy if it had already failed in the other state in the pair. Success or failure was judged by such criteria as the percent of welfare recipients gaining fruitful employment under a state’s specific TANF policies.

He hypothesized that this effect is more nuanced than simple abandonment due to failure. He believed there might also be a similar-states effect, wherein states with similar ideologies would be more likely to learn from the experiences of one another with certain policies.

Results showed this to be accurate. When state ideologies ranked more than 70 points apart on the ideology scale, one state in the pair was far less likely to take lessons from the other. Conservative states, for example, did not abandon policies that had already failed in liberal states at a significant rate.

Volden also examined the difference in policy outcomes for states with professional legislatures (annual salaries of almost $100,000), and those with citizen legislatures (annual salaries less than $10,000). He found that states with highly professional legislatures were more likely to abandon policies early in the process than citizen legislatures.

Volden’s research establishes the link between policy failure by a state government and policy abandonment by another. It confirms the theory that states with similar ideologies and highly professional legislatures are more likely to learn from the experiences of other states. The findings have major implications for policymakers, especially those who believe states can and should act as policy laboratories. States with independence to experiment with and adopt their own policies will not only adopt those that have proven successful, but will also abandon those that have proven unsuccessful, leading to positive outcomes across states.