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

Abstract

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).

Pathways to policy integration: a subsystem approach

“…From a design perspective, it has been argued that policy integration requires that all instruments appropriately interact with each other, enabling them to potentially achieve such a goal (Briassoulis, 2017 ; Howlett & del Rio, 2015 ). Moreover, the coherence and congruence of the instruments that make up the policy mix must be preserved during implementation (Bolognesi & Pflieger, 2019 ; Bolognesi et al, 2021 ; Cejudo & Michel, 2021 ; Maor & Howlett, 2021 ).…”

Unintended policy integration through entrepreneurship at the implementation stage

“…In the longer term, TCCs are thus likely to lead to an overall loss of policy coherence which will further hamper the formulation and implementation of integrated policies. This has been identified as an "Institutional Complexity Trap" (ICT) because policy designs get more complex without generating concrete gains in terms of policy integration at the implementation stage (Bolognesi & Nahrath, 2020;Bolognesi et al, 2021).…”

“…Moreover, the Swiss federal planning policy introduced in 1979 is in direct contradiction with land ownership guarantees anchored in the Swiss Constitution since 1969. Investigating these contradictions, some scholars have concluded that land-use planning in Switzerland is a nice illustration of an "Institutional Complexity Trap" (Bolognesi et al, 2021;Nahrath, 2005;Varone & Nahrath, 2014).…”

The role of actors' issue and sector specialization for policy integration in the parliamentary arena: an analysis of Swiss biodiversity policy using text as data

“…An increasing number of studies have analyzed policies and policy documents (e.g., Bolognesi et al, 2021;Metz et al, 2020;Nkiaka & Lovett, 2018) to investigate how specific issues relate to one or more policy sectors, and have related this to policy integration and similar concepts. However, few have adopted an actor-centered approach and analyzed which actors bring issues into which sectors (for exceptions, see Vogeler, 2022;Brandenberger et al, 2022;Metz & Glaus, 2019;Metz et al, 2020).…”