The more the better? Rule growth and policy impact from a macro perspective

Limberg, Julian; Steinebach, Yves; Bayerlein, Louisa; Knill, Christoph

doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12406

Cited by 38 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…We argue that the combination of these two mechanisms explains the nonlinearities of the policy integration in the long run, although they remain seldom investigated (Adam, Hurka, Knill, Peters, et al 2019;Bolognesi & Nahrath, 2020;Candel & Biesbroek, 2016;Trein et al 2020). Results support the Institutional Complexity Trap model and contribute to the nascent explanations of policy disintegration through uncoordinated policy accumulation and lack of policy coherence (Adam et al, 2019a(Adam et al, , 2019bBiesbroek & Candel, 2019;Cejudo & Michel, 2021;Howlett, 2019;Limberg et al, 2021). The lack of policy coordination may have numerous causes; for example, conflicts among administrations or MP coalitions (Hustedt & Danken, 2017), which contribute to the Institutional Complexity Trap.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

Institutional complexity traps in policy integration processes: a long-term perspective on Swiss flood risk management

2021

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Complexity is inherent to the policy processes and to more and more domains such as environment or social policy. Complexity produces unexpected and counterintuitive effects, in particular, the phenomenon of policy regimes falling short of expectations while made by refined policies. This paper addresses this phenomenon by investigating the process of policy integration and its nonlinearities in the long run. We consider that the increase in the number of policies unexpectedly impacts the policy coherence within a policy regime. We argue that, depending on the degree of policy interactions, this impact varies in direction and intensity over time, which explains nonlinearities in integration. The impact turns negative when the regime is made of numerous policies, which favors non-coordinated policy interactions. Finally, the negative impact prevents further integration as stated by the Institutional Complexity Trap hypothesis and explains the contemporary paradoxical phenomenon of ineffective policy regimes made of refined policies. Empirically, we draw on a relational analysis of policies in the Swiss flood risk policy regime from 1848 to 2017. We study the co-evolution of the number of policies and of their de facto interlinkages, i.e., the co-regulations of a common issue. Findings support that the Institutional Complexity Trap is a structural and long-term dynamic punctuated by periods of policy learning and policy selection. We identify three main phases in the evolution of the regime: the start (1848–1874), the development (1874–1991), and the Institutional Complexity Trap (since 1991).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 56%

Institutional complexity traps in policy integration processes: a long-term perspective on Swiss flood risk management

2021

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“…Considering these findings, we can conclude that the AID index value is actually the only policy-related variable in our model that can be systematically related to higher levels of environmental performance. This finding is particularly remarkable as previous conceptions of environmental policy outputs could not be unconditionally linked to changes in the impact variable (Limberg et al 2021;Steinebach 2019). As such, our AID index can be considered a valid and reliable measure of design quality of sectoral policy portfolios Xavier Fernández-i-Marín, Christoph Knill, and Yves Steinebach that has a strong explanatory power for the outcome variables tested.…”

Section: From Policy Design To Policy Design Quality: How Design Diversity Affects Policy Effectivenessmentioning

confidence: 81%

Studying Policy Design Quality in Comparative Perspective

2021

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This article is a first attempt to systematically examine policy design and its influence on policy effectiveness in a comparative perspective. We begin by providing a novel concept and measure of policy design. Our Average Instrument Diversity (AID) index captures whether governments tend to reuse the same policy instruments and instrument combinations or produce policy solutions that are carefully tailored to the policy problem at hand. Second, we demonstrate that our AID index is a valid and reliable measure of policy design quality with a strong explanatory power for the outcome variables tested. Analyzing the composition of environmental policy portfolios in 21 OECD countries, we show that higher levels of AID are positively associated with a country’s policy effectiveness in environmental matters. Based on this finding, we analyze, in a third step, the factors that lead countries to adopt more or less diverse policy portfolios. We find that the policy design quality is significantly improved when policy makers are not bound by high institutional constraints and, more importantly, are backed by well-equipped bureaucracies.

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“…To ensure that citizens and businesses abide by the rules, their action must be continuously authorized, monitored as well as controlled, and if necessary, sanctioned. The extent to which implementing authorities can carry out the respective activities depends on their human capacity as well as on the financial, technical, and organizational resources available (Limberg, et al 2021).…”

Section: International Climate Agreements and The Well-known Challenges Of Policy Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implementing market mechanisms in the Paris era: the importance of bureaucratic capacity building for international climate policy

Steinebach¹,

Limberg

2021

Journal of European Public Policy

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At the 26th Climate Change Conference of the Parties, scheduled for November 2021, negotiators will finally decide on the future of international carbon markets under the Paris Agreement. While several issues still need to be solved, this 'policy impact forum' article seeks to raise awareness of an important challenge that must be dealt with at the implementation stage: the lack of national administrative capacity. We argue that no matter how international carbon markets will ultimately look like under the Paris Agreement, lowcapacity countries will find it difficult to build up the institutional structures needed to successfully participate in carbon markets. International support for bureaucratic capacity building can help to overcome this barrier. The implementation of market mechanisms under the Paris Agreement must thus be accompanied by increased investments into international cooperation and bureaucratic support programmes. We substantiate our argument with an empirical analysis of the market mechanisms used under the Kyoto Protocol.

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The more the better? Rule growth and policy impact from a macro perspective

Cited by 38 publications

References 66 publications

Institutional complexity traps in policy integration processes: a long-term perspective on Swiss flood risk management

Institutional complexity traps in policy integration processes: a long-term perspective on Swiss flood risk management

Studying Policy Design Quality in Comparative Perspective

Implementing market mechanisms in the Paris era: the importance of bureaucratic capacity building for international climate policy

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