Disaggregating the dependent variable in policy feedback research: an analysis of the EU Emissions Trading System

Abstract

The literature on policy dynamics has long argued for a better conceptualization and measurement of the dependent variable ("policy"), but this fundamental point has often been neglected in the policy feedback literature. In this paper, we explore how far disaggregating policy into different elements (policy instruments, objectives, and settings) addresses this gap. We do so by examining the world's largest market-based climate policy instrumentemissions trading in the European Union-and reveal a number of valuable new insights. First, even if positive policy feedback locks in a policy instrument, actor contestation does not disappear, but narrows down to the more detailed level of policy settings. Second, feedback may operate differently at each policy level: the policy instrument and its settings may strengthen at the same time as support for broader objectives weakens. Finally, positive feedback may simultaneously strengthen opposing actors' support for multiple policy elements, leading to a form of "policy stability by stalemate." These findings highlight the need for a new, interdisciplinary phase of policy feedback research that more fully disaggregates the dependent variable across a wider range of policy areas and policy instrument types. Policy scientists are well equipped to contribute to and benefit from such a debate.

Power struggles in policy feedback processes: incremental steps towards a circular economy within Dutch wastewater policy

“…The activities of the innovators are of particular interest here: they first derived structural power from the three long-term trends and then used relational power to act differently by introducing alternative technologies, coalitions and discourses, undermining the arrangement. Here our analysis indicates that the manners in which policy consequences are constructed as self-undermining feedback require more attention (Dagan & Teles, 2015;Moore & Jordan, 2020). It also makes so-called exogenous factors (i.e.…”

“…As policy feedback literature is increasingly sensitive to the interaction between selfundermining and self-reinforcing feedbacks, it also directs more attention to the role of actors in feedback processes (e.g. Béland, 2010;Jacobs & Weaver, 2015;Jordan & Matt, 2014;Moore & Jordan, 2020;Sewerin et al, 2020), leading to the identification of several mechanisms through which politics can facilitate or block change. In a study on a policy instrument to reduce emissions from new cars, the absence of strong self-undermining feedback is clarified by showing that car-manufacturers took active political steps to intentionally steer the instrument towards incremental adjustments in their technologies.…”

“…Similarly, as the black box around self-reinforcing processes is opened, it is found that institutions, resources, ideas as well as agency and structure matter in feedback processes: 'Supporters and opponents may not take the feedback effects of preexisting policies as given, but may instead actively seek to amplify or suppress such effects, to the extent feasible within institutional constrains' (Patashnik & Zelizer, 2013, p. 1083. Furthermore, in a case on the Emissions Trading System of the EU, it is demonstrated that feedback makes certain policy options more likely but the outcome also depends on the role of actors in the social construction of feedback, particularly on how feedback is interpreted and used as a resource by these actors (Moore & Jordan, 2020). They can draw attention to the consequences of policy to facilitate policy undermining feedback but this requires overcoming powerful cognitive, organisational and political obstacles when this feedback is not anchored in shared understandings and formal institutions (Dagan & Teles, 2015).…”

“…By examining a case study of a shift from self-undermining towards self-reinforcing policy feedback, resulting in incremental instead of fundamental policy change, this study seeks to explore such incremental change by focussing on the power struggles of actors in policy feedback processes. The struggles of actors were recently highlighted by several policy feedback researchers (Béland, 2010;Dagan & Teles, 2015;Haelg et al, 2020;Jacobs & Weaver, 2015;Moore & Jordan, 2020;Schmid et al, 2019). Béland (2010) confirms that existing policies shape the behaviour of actors but suggests that additional research is needed to understand how actors embrace alternative ideas to challenge existing policies and induce change.…”

“…Similarly, when policymakers perceive the consequences of established policies as negative, they may search for alternative ideas and create new coalitions for change (Jacobs & Weaver, 2015). Furthermore, multiple overlapping selfreinforcing and self-undermining feedback processes make certain policy changes more likely but the interpretation and use of this feedback by actors is crucial for the final outcome (Moore & Jordan, 2020). When taken together, these contributions give us an idea of the role of actors in generating policy feedback, particularly in self-undermining policy feedback.…”