How Policies Make Interest Groups : The University of Chicago Press : 9780226820903 : 0226820904 : 28 Sep 2022 : "As most American labor organizations struggle for survival and relevance in the twenty-first century, teacher unions appear to be an exception. Despite being all but nonexistent until the 1960s, these unions are maintaining members, assets-and politicalinfluence. As the COVID-19 epidemic has illustrated, today's teachers unions are something greater than mere labor organizations: they are primary influencers of American education policy. How Policies Make Interest Groups examines the rise of these unions to their current place of influence in American politics. Michael Hartney details how state and local governments adopted a new system of labor relations that subsidized--and in turn strengthened--the power of teachers' unions as interest groups in American politics. In doing so, governments created a force in American politics: an entrenched, subsidized machine for members