The Declaration of Independence and the Politics of Inaction

The Declaration of Independence articulated the claim that injustice arises not only from active tyranny but also from the refusal to adapt institutions to social change. Its grievances centred upon frozen institutions, suspended laws, and blocked representation for newly settled areas: a catalogue of harms produced by omission and neglect. Yet today, America’s veto-exceptional political institutions systematically reward inaction. A frozen policy drifts when changing social or economic conditions transform its scope and distributive consequences without formal revision. Drift is hidden because it is typically perpetuated through omission, rather than commission. Across policy domains – from labour markets to criminal justice to redistricting – drifting rules generate deeply partisan and racialized effects. Throughout American history, representatives of established areas have often resisted creating new districts for settlers, immigrants, or growing communities of colour, freezing boundaries that become increasingly biased over time. The Declaration condemned the politics of neglect; 250 years later, America’s constitutional architecture remains structured by the enduring power of inaction.

Speaker: Dr Ursula Hackett

Ursula Hackett is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she specialises in the study of public policymaking and litigation in the US. A former British Academy Mid-Career Fellow, she is the author of the award-winning book, America’s Voucher Politics: How Elites Learned to Hide the State (Cambridge University Press, 2020). She hosts with the New Books Network podcast and has published her research in journals such as Perspectives on Politics, Policy Studies Journal, Studies in American Political Development, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and Politics and Religion.

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