The first step in identifying the factors that explain why state officials’ reactions to national initiatives range from enthusiasm to indifference to antagonism is recognizing that public policies are not only the result of broader social and political processes; they also have the potential to reshape existing political dynamics. In particular, policy decisions made at one moment in time have the potential to influence political struggles years or even decades later, with implications for the policy’s long-term stability. These policy feedback effects take two forms. First, self-reinforcing processes can make a policy’s developmental trajectory difficult to reverse by hindering the adoption of previously plausible alternatives (Skocpol 1992; Weir 1992; Pierson 2004). Second, public policies can generate self-undermining dynamics that diminish rather than reinforce their own long-term viability (Jacobs and Weaver 2015; Oberlander and Weaver 2015; Weaver 2010).