Policy Accumulation and the Democratic Responsiveness Trap
Part of Cambridge Studies in Comparative Public Policy
- Authors:
- Christian Adam, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munchen
- Steffen Hurka, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munchen
- Christoph Knill, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munchen
- Yves Steinebach, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munchen
- Date Published: May 2019
- availability: In stock
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9781108481199
Hardback
Other available formats:
Paperback, eBook
Looking for an examination copy?
This title is not currently available for examination. However, if you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an examination copy. To register your interest please contact collegesales@cambridge.org providing details of the course you are teaching.
-
The responsiveness to societal demands is both the key virtue and the key problem of modern democracies. On the one hand, responsiveness is a central cornerstone of democratic legitimacy. On the other hand, responsiveness inevitably entails policy accumulation. While policy accumulation often positively reflects modernisation and human progress, it also undermines democratic government in three main ways. First, policy accumulation renders policy content increasingly complex, which crowds out policy substance from public debates and leads to an increasingly unhealthy discursive prioritisation of politics over policy. Secondly, policy accumulation comes with aggravating implementation deficits, as it produces administrative backlogs and incentivises selective implementation. Finally, policy accumulation undermines the pursuit of evidence-based public policy, because it threatens our ability to evaluate the increasingly complex interactions within growing policy mixes. The authors argue that the stability of democratic systems will crucially depend on their ability to make policy accumulation more sustainable.
Read more- Proposes an innovative, aggregate perspective on patterns of policy change that will appeal to public policy scholars who want to better understand long-term and cross-sectional dynamics of policy change
- Introduces policy accumulation as a new concept and allows for a broad and encompassing assessment of general developments in public policy
- Employs both large amounts of quantitative data and detailed case studies, is written in an accessible manner and is supported by real-world examples
Customer reviews
Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review
Review was not posted due to profanity
×Product details
- Date Published: May 2019
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9781108481199
- length: 250 pages
- dimensions: 235 x 157 x 18 mm
- weight: 0.48kg
- availability: In stock
Table of Contents
1. Policy accumulation and the democratic responsiveness trap:
1.1 Accumulation and democratic overload
1.2 Caught in a responsiveness trap
1.3 Structure of the book
2. Policy accumulation: concept and measurement:
2.1 Conceptual challenges
2.2 Targets and instruments: policy elements as a universal unit of policy accumulation
2.3 Data and measurement
3. Policy accumulation: a uniform trend in democratic policy making:
3.1 Empirical patterns of policy accumulation
3.2 Origins of policy accumulation
3.3 The (false) promises of contemporary attempts to reverse this trend
4. The threat to our ability to talk policy, not politics:
4.1 Public policies as complex systems
4.2 How policy accumulation affects the demandingness of policy debate
4.3 Towards a representative model of discourse quality
4.4 The divergence of policy debates
4.5 Old vs. young policy mixes
4.6 Implications: addressing the populist challenge
4.7 Meanwhile, our friend John Doe …
4.8 Complex problems, simple conclusions?
5. The threat to effective and even policy implementation:
5.1 The well-known challenges of policy implementation
5.2 Policy accumulation and the increasing burdens of implementation
5.3 The aggregate burdens of policy implementation
5.4 Structural overload and increasing prevalence of implementation deficits?
5.5 Meanwhile, our friend John Doe …
5.6 Challenges for policy implementation in the twenty-first century
6. The threat to evidence-based policy making:
6.1 Striving for evidence-based public policy
6.2 Evaluating policy effectiveness within increasingly complex policy mixes
6.3 Handling the aggravating independent variable problem
6.4 So what's the problem?
6.5 Meanwhile, our friend John Doe …
6.6 Implications and conclusions
7. Ways towards sustainable policy accumulation:
7.1 Why deregulation is not the answer
7.2 Strengthening our democratic infrastructure
7.3 How much should we worry?
7.4 How can we tell? Implications for policy research
7.5 Policy accumulation beyond politics: implications for organisational research?
7.6 Final remarks
8. Appendix
9. Index
10. References.
Sorry, this resource is locked
Please register or sign in to request access. If you are having problems accessing these resources please email lecturers@cambridge.org
Register Sign in» Proceed