Policy Resistance

    Frequently, a nonlinear feedback system will respond to a policy change in the desired manner for a short period of time, but then return to its pre-policy-change state. This occurs when the system's feedback structure works to defeat the policy change designed to improve it. 

    Policy resistance is caused by a system's negative feedback processes. Consider the example of the percentage of white students attending Boston schools with nonwhite students, before and after mandatory busing was instituted as a policy change. The data for the years 1968 - 1992 is shown in Figure 21. Inspection of the figure reveals that the percentage of white students attending Boston schools with nonwhite students shot up immediately after the busing policy was instituted in 1974, but then gradually declined so that by 1982 it had return to its pre-busing level. 

    Figure 21: Percentage of White Students Attending School with NonWhite Students in Boston 

    Policy resistance occurs when a policy is applied to a system dominated by negative feedback processes and the policy change does not alter the desired states of the negative loops. In the case of the percentage of white students attending Boston schools with nonwhite students, the busing policy did not change the desire of white parents to have their children attend school primarily with other white students. In other words, it did not change the parents' desired percentage of white students in the schools to which they sent their children. Thus, after busing was instituted, many white families gradually moved to the suburbs and enrolled their children in primarily white schools.