A few weeks ago, I made my way through Soldiers to Citizens, a 2005 book by the political scientist Suzanne Mettler. Ostensibly a history of the GI Bill, the work is part of a burgeoning scholarly field studying “policy feedback” — a somnolent name for a groundbreaking set of ideas.

The school’s key insight is that “policy makes politics.” A given policy measure should be judged not simply for its surface-level intent and immediate effects (lowering health-care costs, improving education, reducing crime), but how it shapes the future political landscape. The very design of policies (universal or means-tested, simple or byzantine) can empower citizens or stigmatize them; create emboldened constituencies or impotent ones.

Mettler shows that the post–World War II GI Bill, with its capacious coverage and no-strings-attached benefits, telegraphed an unambiguous message: those who served in the military were full members of the American polity and had the right to the good life. Veterans received education and job training without having to wind their way through baroque procedures or fend off officious bureaucrats. They were treated, in a word, like citizens.