These are the topics, questions, and issues on which I am working right now or have worked on in the past:
Policy Accumulation
DESCRIPTION
Democratic policy making resembles a walk on a tightrope. Policy makers must balance a myriad of interests in order to bring policies from the idea side of the rope to the legislative reality side, and their legitimacy largely depends on their ability to make the trip successfully. Comparative policy research typically focuses on this balancing act; its goal is to assess the factors that contribute to the success or the failure of policy makers’ efforts to cross the high wire from one side to the other.
We redirect our analytical focus away from the policy-decision balancing act and zoom in on the anchors that support the rope itself. How do the ceaseless crossings of the rope and the continuous accumulation of policies affect the stability of these anchors upon which the very legitimacy of democratic government depends? With this unusual analytical focus, we propose nothing less than the need for a paradigmatic change in the theorization of public policy. Comparative policy analysis has been investing the vast majority of its efforts in attempts to explain individual instances of policy change and its implications. And yet, across nearly all policy sectors and developed democracies, the most prominent development in policy output is not policy change but rather policy accumulation. This accumulation phenomenon comes to light once we stop focusing on individual policy adoptions and instead focus on the long-term and aggregate development of policy output.
Despite widespread concerns over their built-in potential for institutional gridlock, democracies have proven time and again that they are extraordinarily good at making decisions. Although democracies must balance competing demands and forge compromises, their productivity in accumulating more and more policy instruments addressing more and more policy items is remarkable. This continuous expansion of the volume of law and regulations has been described in many ways: as an increase in policy density (Knill, Schulze, et al., 2012), policyscapes (Mettler, 2016), policy layering (Thelen, 1999, 2004), an emergence of complex policy mixes (Howlett & Rayner, 2013; Howlett & Del Rio, 2015), and a rising stock of rules (van Witteloostuijn & de Jong, 2008, 2010). Common to these descriptions is the general trend of continuous policy accumulation as the rate of policy production continues to exceed the rate of policy termination. Despite the prominence and near universality of this trend, we know little to nothing about its drivers or, more importantly, its implications.
This scientific neglect is disturbing, since the consequences of continuous policy accumulation could hardly be of greater political and societal significance. We see policy accumulation as a threat to three main building blocks of modern democratic governance: (1) the ability to implement, monitor, and enforce public policy in a timely and even-handed manner; (2) the ability to engage in evidence-based policy making; and (3) the ability to maintain sophisticated policy debates within the public political arena.
Due to the inherently ambivalent nature of policy accumulation, attempts to reverse this general trend and to engage in large-scale deregulation seem to be misguided. After all, policy accumulation is in many ways the direct manifestation of societal progress and modernization. Instead of joining widespread calls for deregulation, we argue that the stability of democratic systems will depend on their ability to make this process of policy accumulation sustainable. Accumulation is sustainable when it does not stand in the way of timely and even policy implementation and enforcement, sophisticated debates on policy substance, and the impact of evidence on policy makers’ decisions. If, however, democracies take an unsustainable path of policy accumulation, their attempts to respond to societal demands by accumulating more and more policies will slowly but surely undermine their perceived legitimacy and stability, since administrative backlog and selective implementation, the absence of policy substance from political discourse, and the lack of understanding of policy evaluations will leave uninformed citizens angry and frustrated with the process of democratic policy making.
We redirect our analytical focus away from the policy-decision balancing act and zoom in on the anchors that support the rope itself. How do the ceaseless crossings of the rope and the continuous accumulation of policies affect the stability of these anchors upon which the very legitimacy of democratic government depends? With this unusual analytical focus, we propose nothing less than the need for a paradigmatic change in the theorization of public policy. Comparative policy analysis has been investing the vast majority of its efforts in attempts to explain individual instances of policy change and its implications. And yet, across nearly all policy sectors and developed democracies, the most prominent development in policy output is not policy change but rather policy accumulation. This accumulation phenomenon comes to light once we stop focusing on individual policy adoptions and instead focus on the long-term and aggregate development of policy output.
Despite widespread concerns over their built-in potential for institutional gridlock, democracies have proven time and again that they are extraordinarily good at making decisions. Although democracies must balance competing demands and forge compromises, their productivity in accumulating more and more policy instruments addressing more and more policy items is remarkable. This continuous expansion of the volume of law and regulations has been described in many ways: as an increase in policy density (Knill, Schulze, et al., 2012), policyscapes (Mettler, 2016), policy layering (Thelen, 1999, 2004), an emergence of complex policy mixes (Howlett & Rayner, 2013; Howlett & Del Rio, 2015), and a rising stock of rules (van Witteloostuijn & de Jong, 2008, 2010). Common to these descriptions is the general trend of continuous policy accumulation as the rate of policy production continues to exceed the rate of policy termination. Despite the prominence and near universality of this trend, we know little to nothing about its drivers or, more importantly, its implications.
This scientific neglect is disturbing, since the consequences of continuous policy accumulation could hardly be of greater political and societal significance. We see policy accumulation as a threat to three main building blocks of modern democratic governance: (1) the ability to implement, monitor, and enforce public policy in a timely and even-handed manner; (2) the ability to engage in evidence-based policy making; and (3) the ability to maintain sophisticated policy debates within the public political arena.
Due to the inherently ambivalent nature of policy accumulation, attempts to reverse this general trend and to engage in large-scale deregulation seem to be misguided. After all, policy accumulation is in many ways the direct manifestation of societal progress and modernization. Instead of joining widespread calls for deregulation, we argue that the stability of democratic systems will depend on their ability to make this process of policy accumulation sustainable. Accumulation is sustainable when it does not stand in the way of timely and even policy implementation and enforcement, sophisticated debates on policy substance, and the impact of evidence on policy makers’ decisions. If, however, democracies take an unsustainable path of policy accumulation, their attempts to respond to societal demands by accumulating more and more policies will slowly but surely undermine their perceived legitimacy and stability, since administrative backlog and selective implementation, the absence of policy substance from political discourse, and the lack of understanding of policy evaluations will leave uninformed citizens angry and frustrated with the process of democratic policy making.
PUBLICATIONS
Academic Writings:
Adam, Christian, Hurka Steffen, Knill Christoph & Yves Steinebach. (2021). On democratic Intelligence and Failure: The Vice and Virtue of Incrementalism under Political Fragmentation and Policy Accumulation. Governance: online first. OPEN ACCESS HERE.
Adam, Christian, Knill, Christoph, Hurka, Steffen & Steinebach, Yves (2019). Policy Accumulation and the Democratic Responsiveness Trap. Cambridge University Press.
Adam, Christian, Hurka, Steffen, Knill, Christoph, Peters, Guy B. & Yves Steinebach. (2019). Introducing Vertical Policy Coordination to Comparative Policy Analysis: The Missing Link Between Policy Production and Implementation. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 21 (5): 499-517. GET FREE E-PRINTS HERE.
Adam, Christian, Steinebach, Yves & Knill, Christoph. (2018). Neglected Challenges to Evidence-Based Policy-Making: the Problem of Policy Accumulation. Policy Sciences 51 (3): 269-290. (Awarded the Lasswell Prize for Best Article published in 2018 in Policy Sciences).
Adam, Christian & Knill, Christoph. (2018). Plädoyer für eine epidemiologische Neuausrichtung der Implementationsforschung: Skizze einer Forschungsagend. In: Bauer, M. W. & Grande, E. (eds.) Perspektiven der Verwaltungswissenschaft. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Adam, Christian, Knill, Christoph and Xavier Fernandez-i-Marin (2017). Rule Growth and Government Effectiveness: Why it takes the Capacity to Learn and Coordinate to Constrain Rule Growth. Policy Sciences 50 (2): 241-268. (Award for best paper on the topic of bureaucracy by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research: see press release).
Popular Writings:
Adam, Christian, Knill, Christoph & Yves Steinebach (2021). Auswege aus dem Regulierungsdilemma. Die Volkswirtschaft: https://dievolkswirtschaft.ch/de/2021/07/auswege-aus-dem-regulierungsdilemma/
Adam, Christian, Knill, Christoph, Hurka, Steffen & Steinebach, Yves. (2018). Demokratische Politik in der Komplexitätsfalle? Strukturelle Schwierigkeiten eines argumentativen Umgangs mit Populisten. In: Mack, W. (ed.) Zwischen Offenheit und Abschottung: Wie die Politik zurück in die Mitte findet. Herder Verlag.
Media Appearance:
Knill, Christoph, Adam, Christian, Hurka, Steffen & Steinebach, Yves (2019). Die moderne Demokratie droht sich selber zu überfordern. Gastkommentar in die Neue Zürcher Zeitung vom 2. April 2019. https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/die-moderne-demokratie-droht-sich-selber-zu-ueberfordern-ld.1464383. Beitrag als PDF.
Related BlogPost:
https://www.dvpw.de/blog/blog-beitraege/2019/selbstueberforderung-durch-politikakkumulation-moderne-demokratien-in-der-responsivitaetsfalle-ein-beitrag-von-christoph-knill-christian-adam-steffen-hurka-und-yves-steinbach
Reviews of our Book "Policy Accumulation and the Democratic Responsiveness Trap"
Jale Tosun (2020) Policy Accumulation and the Democratic Responsiveness Trap, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, DOI: 10.1080/13876988.2020.1854044
Green-Pedersen, C. (2021). Policy Accumulation and the Democratic Responsiveness Trap. By Christian Adam, Steffen Hurka, Christoph Knill, and Yves Steinebach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 250p. Perspectives on Politics, 19(1), 319-320. doi: 10.1017/S1537592720004168
Adam, Christian, Hurka Steffen, Knill Christoph & Yves Steinebach. (2021). On democratic Intelligence and Failure: The Vice and Virtue of Incrementalism under Political Fragmentation and Policy Accumulation. Governance: online first. OPEN ACCESS HERE.
Adam, Christian, Knill, Christoph, Hurka, Steffen & Steinebach, Yves (2019). Policy Accumulation and the Democratic Responsiveness Trap. Cambridge University Press.
Adam, Christian, Hurka, Steffen, Knill, Christoph, Peters, Guy B. & Yves Steinebach. (2019). Introducing Vertical Policy Coordination to Comparative Policy Analysis: The Missing Link Between Policy Production and Implementation. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 21 (5): 499-517. GET FREE E-PRINTS HERE.
Adam, Christian, Steinebach, Yves & Knill, Christoph. (2018). Neglected Challenges to Evidence-Based Policy-Making: the Problem of Policy Accumulation. Policy Sciences 51 (3): 269-290. (Awarded the Lasswell Prize for Best Article published in 2018 in Policy Sciences).
Adam, Christian & Knill, Christoph. (2018). Plädoyer für eine epidemiologische Neuausrichtung der Implementationsforschung: Skizze einer Forschungsagend. In: Bauer, M. W. & Grande, E. (eds.) Perspektiven der Verwaltungswissenschaft. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Adam, Christian, Knill, Christoph and Xavier Fernandez-i-Marin (2017). Rule Growth and Government Effectiveness: Why it takes the Capacity to Learn and Coordinate to Constrain Rule Growth. Policy Sciences 50 (2): 241-268. (Award for best paper on the topic of bureaucracy by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research: see press release).
Popular Writings:
Adam, Christian, Knill, Christoph & Yves Steinebach (2021). Auswege aus dem Regulierungsdilemma. Die Volkswirtschaft: https://dievolkswirtschaft.ch/de/2021/07/auswege-aus-dem-regulierungsdilemma/
Adam, Christian, Knill, Christoph, Hurka, Steffen & Steinebach, Yves. (2018). Demokratische Politik in der Komplexitätsfalle? Strukturelle Schwierigkeiten eines argumentativen Umgangs mit Populisten. In: Mack, W. (ed.) Zwischen Offenheit und Abschottung: Wie die Politik zurück in die Mitte findet. Herder Verlag.
Media Appearance:
Knill, Christoph, Adam, Christian, Hurka, Steffen & Steinebach, Yves (2019). Die moderne Demokratie droht sich selber zu überfordern. Gastkommentar in die Neue Zürcher Zeitung vom 2. April 2019. https://www.nzz.ch/meinung/die-moderne-demokratie-droht-sich-selber-zu-ueberfordern-ld.1464383. Beitrag als PDF.
Related BlogPost:
https://www.dvpw.de/blog/blog-beitraege/2019/selbstueberforderung-durch-politikakkumulation-moderne-demokratien-in-der-responsivitaetsfalle-ein-beitrag-von-christoph-knill-christian-adam-steffen-hurka-und-yves-steinbach
Reviews of our Book "Policy Accumulation and the Democratic Responsiveness Trap"
Jale Tosun (2020) Policy Accumulation and the Democratic Responsiveness Trap, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, DOI: 10.1080/13876988.2020.1854044
Green-Pedersen, C. (2021). Policy Accumulation and the Democratic Responsiveness Trap. By Christian Adam, Steffen Hurka, Christoph Knill, and Yves Steinebach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. 250p. Perspectives on Politics, 19(1), 319-320. doi: 10.1017/S1537592720004168
Bureaucratic Discrimination
Improved service brings citizen and state together / Bürger trifft Behörde by Daniela Hartmann; Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Description
With the recent rises in migration and the corresponding diffusion of xenophobic rhetoric in Germany and throughout most of Europe, discrimination based on race, gender, religion, and political beliefs has gained even greater relevance. Government services in particular should make no distinction between different their ‘customers’. After all, the equal treatment of all citizens is one of the fundamental principles of good administrative practice. And yet, anecdotes about experiences of discrimination by government services are omnipresent among such minority groups. Field experiments provide a very effective way of evaluating whether or not such discriminatory experiences are isolated incidents or not. Furthermore, such field experiments can help to identify which factors help to moderate discriminatory practices by public bureaucrats. While most of this newly emerging research on bureaucratic discrimination based on field experiments is focusing on the United States, I have analyzed discriminatory behavior by German bureaucrats. Specifically, me and my collegues conducted two separate experiments which both combined the techniques of a field and survey experiment. In a first experimental setting, we focused on the bureaucratic discrimination in answers to ordinary citizen requests to local governments. We analyzed discriminatory practices based on ethnic origin (Turkish vs. German) and gender. The results show very limited discrimination effects. While there is no evidence for general ethnic discrimination, a more differentiated analysis indicates patterns of ethnic discrimination conditioned by gender (Link).
Yet, in times of increasing political and societal polarization bureaucratic discrimination might not only be based on people’s individual characteristics (such as their racial background) but also on people’s political beliefs. The task of political science in this regard is not only to uncover and describe potential patterns of discrimination. Its task is also to identify political factors that promote or reduce individual tendencies to engage in discriminatory behavior. Along these lines, we conducted a second field experiment in which we confronted local administrations with citizen requests about a public assembly. While one group of administrators received requests about an assembly promoting the equal treatment of same-sex couples, the other (randomly selected) half received requests about an assembly condemning the equal their equal treatment. Both requests are protected by the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly and should technically be handled with an equal level of service-orientation. What we find, however, are patterns of discrimination that reveal themselves when public administrators’ political and cultural environment is taken into account: whether requests receive good and helpful answers depends on whether they are made in predominantly Catholic communities and in communities with a strong party opposing same-sex marriage. When these actors dominate communities’ cultural environments, they promote perceptions of homosexuals as undeserving of marriage. Bureaucratic behavior tends to reflect these perceptions (the respective paper is currently under review and thus unavailable here; a link will be included after the review process).
Yet, in times of increasing political and societal polarization bureaucratic discrimination might not only be based on people’s individual characteristics (such as their racial background) but also on people’s political beliefs. The task of political science in this regard is not only to uncover and describe potential patterns of discrimination. Its task is also to identify political factors that promote or reduce individual tendencies to engage in discriminatory behavior. Along these lines, we conducted a second field experiment in which we confronted local administrations with citizen requests about a public assembly. While one group of administrators received requests about an assembly promoting the equal treatment of same-sex couples, the other (randomly selected) half received requests about an assembly condemning the equal their equal treatment. Both requests are protected by the freedom of speech and the freedom of assembly and should technically be handled with an equal level of service-orientation. What we find, however, are patterns of discrimination that reveal themselves when public administrators’ political and cultural environment is taken into account: whether requests receive good and helpful answers depends on whether they are made in predominantly Catholic communities and in communities with a strong party opposing same-sex marriage. When these actors dominate communities’ cultural environments, they promote perceptions of homosexuals as undeserving of marriage. Bureaucratic behavior tends to reflect these perceptions (the respective paper is currently under review and thus unavailable here; a link will be included after the review process).
PUBLICATIONS
Fernández-i-Marín, Xavier, Rapp, Carolin, Adam, Christian, James, Oliver & Anita Manatschal. (2021). Discrimination against mobile European Union citizens before and during the first COVID-19 lockdown: Evidence from a conjoint experiment in Germany. European Union Politics, online first.
Adam, Christian, Fernandez-i-Marin Xavier, James Oliver, Manatschal Anita, Rapp Carolin & Eva Thomann. (2021). Differential Discrimination against Mobile EU Citizens: Experimental Evidence from Bureaucratic Choice Settings. Journal of European Public Policy: online first. GET FREE E-PRINTS HERE.
Adam, Christian, Knill Christoph & Stephan Grohs. (2020). Discrimination based on Political Beliefs: A Field Experiment on the Freedom of Assembly. Public Policy and Administration.
Grohs, Stephan, Adam, Christian & Knill, Christoph 2016. Are Some Citizens More Equal than Others? Evidence from a Field Experiment. Public Administration Review, 76: (1): 155-164. Click here to listen to the synopsis as podcast on youtube
Adam, Christian, Fernandez-i-Marin Xavier, James Oliver, Manatschal Anita, Rapp Carolin & Eva Thomann. (2021). Differential Discrimination against Mobile EU Citizens: Experimental Evidence from Bureaucratic Choice Settings. Journal of European Public Policy: online first. GET FREE E-PRINTS HERE.
Adam, Christian, Knill Christoph & Stephan Grohs. (2020). Discrimination based on Political Beliefs: A Field Experiment on the Freedom of Assembly. Public Policy and Administration.
Grohs, Stephan, Adam, Christian & Knill, Christoph 2016. Are Some Citizens More Equal than Others? Evidence from a Field Experiment. Public Administration Review, 76: (1): 155-164. Click here to listen to the synopsis as podcast on youtube
Implementation Conflict in the EU
DESCRIPTION
The European Union is in tough waters at the moment. After referenda on the Constitutional Treaty failed in France in the Netherlands in 2005, ‘Brexit’ is the most recent indication for the feeling of many citizens and policy-makers that they are overly constrained by the rules imposed onto them by Brussels. Some find themselves unwilling or unable to follow these rules. Therefore, the resulting failure of member states to comply with EU rules has turned into one of the most prominent research strands in EU politics. In my research, I have joined these efforts to understand patterns of (non-)compliance. However, the starting point for my research is a phenomenon that has so far been empirically overlook: not only member sattes are accused of noncompliance, the Guardian of the Treaties itself is accused of noncompliance as well.
With the legal instrument of actions for annulment, member state governments other actors can bring cases of noncompliance committed by the European Commission to the CJEU’s attention and have the Court annul the respective action violating EU law. My research ananylzes the domestic politics underlying the decision to accuse the European Commission of wrong-doing. Interestingly, I find that the reasons are not strictly legalistic. Most of the time, there are political motives behind such accusations and subsequent litigation against the Commission. For once, member states try to evade far-reaching costs of adapting to EU law as enforced by the Commission. Moreover, national actors are selecting these cases strategically for their usefulness to provoke judicial law-making on the part of the CJEU (link to book).
Since the motives behind litigation are often political, national actors are often unsuccessful in court. In fact, countries with strong regional governments and federalist structures have substantially worse litigation records than centralist states. My colleagues and I argue that this is no coincidence. This is because for national governments operating within a context with strong regional actors, such litigation against the Commission is often a part of a two-level game in which the value of the legal conflict for a national government can be independent of, or even negatively related to, legal success in court. Negative rulings can have values as normative levers in domestic reform processes. Plus, governments can reap immediate benefits from communicating to stand up against the Commission to national constituents immediately, while any subsequent costs of loosing the proceedings are located far in the future since legal proceedings typically last several years (link to paper).
And yet, not all accusations are futile and ungrounded. In fact, the European Commission itself has been convicted of violating EU law in about 475 cases until 2009. We are currently in the process of identifying when and why the Commission is willing to risk its reputation and authority as Guardian of the Treaties and violate EU law. Preliminary results suggest that Commission noncompliance – just like member state noncompliance – is not only the result of conscious and political cost-benefit calculations but also often the involuntary result of capacity constraints (link to paper will follow).
With the legal instrument of actions for annulment, member state governments other actors can bring cases of noncompliance committed by the European Commission to the CJEU’s attention and have the Court annul the respective action violating EU law. My research ananylzes the domestic politics underlying the decision to accuse the European Commission of wrong-doing. Interestingly, I find that the reasons are not strictly legalistic. Most of the time, there are political motives behind such accusations and subsequent litigation against the Commission. For once, member states try to evade far-reaching costs of adapting to EU law as enforced by the Commission. Moreover, national actors are selecting these cases strategically for their usefulness to provoke judicial law-making on the part of the CJEU (link to book).
Since the motives behind litigation are often political, national actors are often unsuccessful in court. In fact, countries with strong regional governments and federalist structures have substantially worse litigation records than centralist states. My colleagues and I argue that this is no coincidence. This is because for national governments operating within a context with strong regional actors, such litigation against the Commission is often a part of a two-level game in which the value of the legal conflict for a national government can be independent of, or even negatively related to, legal success in court. Negative rulings can have values as normative levers in domestic reform processes. Plus, governments can reap immediate benefits from communicating to stand up against the Commission to national constituents immediately, while any subsequent costs of loosing the proceedings are located far in the future since legal proceedings typically last several years (link to paper).
And yet, not all accusations are futile and ungrounded. In fact, the European Commission itself has been convicted of violating EU law in about 475 cases until 2009. We are currently in the process of identifying when and why the Commission is willing to risk its reputation and authority as Guardian of the Treaties and violate EU law. Preliminary results suggest that Commission noncompliance – just like member state noncompliance – is not only the result of conscious and political cost-benefit calculations but also often the involuntary result of capacity constraints (link to paper will follow).
PUBLICATIONS
Adam, Christian, Bauer, Michael W., Hartlapp, Miriam & Emmanuelle Mathieu (2019). Taking the EU to Court – Annulment Proceedings and Multilevel Judicial Conflict in the EU. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. OPEN ACCESS.
Mathieu, Emmanuelle, Christian Adam & Miriam Hartlapp. (2018). From High Judges to Policy Actors: How Stakeholders Condition the CJEU's Influence. Special Issue of the Journal of European Integration 40 (6): 653-834.
Adam, Christian. (2018). Multilevel Conflict over Policy Application – Detecting Changing Cleavage Patterns. Journal of European Integration 40 (6): 83-700.
Adam, Christian, Bauer, Michael W. & Hartlapp, Miriam 2018. Judicial Control of the Guardian – Explaining Patterns of Governmental Annulment Litigation against the European Commission. In: Bauer, M., Ege, J. & Becker, S. (eds.) The European Commission in Turbulent Times. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Adam, Christian. (2016). Supranational Administrative Acts and Judicial Review in the EU's State Aid Regime. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Adam, Christian, Michael W. Bauer & Miriam Hartlapp. (2015). It's Not Always about Winning - Domestic Politics and Legal Success in EU Annulment Litigation. Journal of Common Market Studies 53 (2): 185-200.
Mathieu, Emmanuelle, Christian Adam & Miriam Hartlapp. (2018). From High Judges to Policy Actors: How Stakeholders Condition the CJEU's Influence. Special Issue of the Journal of European Integration 40 (6): 653-834.
Adam, Christian. (2018). Multilevel Conflict over Policy Application – Detecting Changing Cleavage Patterns. Journal of European Integration 40 (6): 83-700.
Adam, Christian, Bauer, Michael W. & Hartlapp, Miriam 2018. Judicial Control of the Guardian – Explaining Patterns of Governmental Annulment Litigation against the European Commission. In: Bauer, M., Ege, J. & Becker, S. (eds.) The European Commission in Turbulent Times. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Adam, Christian. (2016). Supranational Administrative Acts and Judicial Review in the EU's State Aid Regime. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Adam, Christian, Michael W. Bauer & Miriam Hartlapp. (2015). It's Not Always about Winning - Domestic Politics and Legal Success in EU Annulment Litigation. Journal of Common Market Studies 53 (2): 185-200.
Public Health Regulation
Non-Communicable Diseases: World Map (Deaths per million persons). Data by WHO (2012). Picutre by Chris55; Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).
DESCRIPTION
While Comparative Policy Analysis has created a vast amount of research on patterns and effects of social and environmental policy reform, public health regulation is one of those areas, which have received rather little attention by political scientists. Instead, policy analysis in this field is mostly conducted by medical and psychological scholars as well as by economists. My work in this area starts from the premise that political scientists can contribute to this line of research in two respects. First of all, political science can add value to other disciplines’ research in this field due to its expertise regarding the conceptualization of public policy (the respective working paper will be available here soon). Secondly, it contributes to the predominantly normative debates by adding an analytical edge: instead of asking what effective public health policy reforms should look like, political science can help to explain under which conditions specific reforms are undertaken while others are omitted (Link 1; Link 2).
Moreover, the area of public health regulation provides a fertile ground for assessing whether and under which conditions theories of public policy change that have proven useful in other policy contexts also help to explain change in this particular area. This is all the more interesting as the public and political pressures to engage in strictly evidence-based policy-making is hardly stronger in any other policy area. Despite relying on a common pool of available scientific knowledge, however, national responses to common public health problems – such as the spread of pathological gambling, or cannabis dependence – continue to reflect a great degree of variance. With my research I try to make a humble contribution towards disentangling how this variance affects public health patterns (Link) and towards identifying which political factors that help to explain this variance.
One factor that helps to explain this appears to be judicial behavior and more specifically, the extent to which they require public policy to be in coherence with extant evidence. The fact that Germany had to give up its sports betting monopoly while Scandinavian countries did not can be traced back in large part to national judges’ perception of the coherence of national gambling and addiction policy more generally (Link 1; Link 2).
Moreover, the area of public health regulation provides a fertile ground for assessing whether and under which conditions theories of public policy change that have proven useful in other policy contexts also help to explain change in this particular area. This is all the more interesting as the public and political pressures to engage in strictly evidence-based policy-making is hardly stronger in any other policy area. Despite relying on a common pool of available scientific knowledge, however, national responses to common public health problems – such as the spread of pathological gambling, or cannabis dependence – continue to reflect a great degree of variance. With my research I try to make a humble contribution towards disentangling how this variance affects public health patterns (Link) and towards identifying which political factors that help to explain this variance.
One factor that helps to explain this appears to be judicial behavior and more specifically, the extent to which they require public policy to be in coherence with extant evidence. The fact that Germany had to give up its sports betting monopoly while Scandinavian countries did not can be traced back in large part to national judges’ perception of the coherence of national gambling and addiction policy more generally (Link 1; Link 2).
PUBLICATIONS
Adam, Christian, Steinebach, Yves & Knill, Christoph. (2018). Neglected Challenges to Evidence-Based Policy-Making: the Problem of Policy Accumulation. Policy Sciences 51 (3): 269-290. (Awarded the Lasswell Prize for Best Article published in 2018 in Policy Sciences).
Adam, Christian 2015. Gambling - The Erosion of Domestic Sports Betting Monopolies. In: Knill, C., Adam, C. & Hurka, S. (eds.) On the Road to Permissiveness? Change and Convergence of Moral Regulation in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Adam, Christian & Raschzok, Andreas 2016. Cannabis Policy and the Uptake of Treatment for Cannabis-related Problems. Drug and Alcohol Review, first published online.
Adam, Christian & Raschzok, Andreas 2014. Explaining Trends in Addictive Behaviour Policy – The Role of Policy Coherence. International Journal of Drug Policy, 25: (3): 494-591.
Adam, Christian 2015. Gambling - The Erosion of Domestic Sports Betting Monopolies. In: Knill, C., Adam, C. & Hurka, S. (eds.) On the Road to Permissiveness? Change and Convergence of Moral Regulation in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Adam, Christian & Raschzok, Andreas 2016. Cannabis Policy and the Uptake of Treatment for Cannabis-related Problems. Drug and Alcohol Review, first published online.
Adam, Christian & Raschzok, Andreas 2014. Explaining Trends in Addictive Behaviour Policy – The Role of Policy Coherence. International Journal of Drug Policy, 25: (3): 494-591.
Morality Policy Change
Description
Some areas of public policy are more sensitive than others because they directly touch upon deeply held beliefs and values. When should abortion be legal? Should we give gay couples the same rights as heterosexual couples? Should we treat prostitution as an ordinary service industry? These questions are at the heart of what we call morality policies. Policy-making is often argued to work somewhat differently in this area than in other areas of public policy since it is particularly difficult to reach political compromise. Simply put, it is hard to compromise one's core values. One of the key questions in this field is therefore, whether the highly conflictive and moralized politics in this area translate into distinctive patterns of morality policy change. I was lucky enough to be part of a research team under the lead of Christoph Knill and financed under his ERC Advanced Grant to work on this and other related questions. And one answer we found in our work was that there indeed are distinctive patterns of morality policy output: morality policy change tends to more extreme than policy change in other areas. For very long periods of time, morality policies persist without even incremental adjustments until very rare but very large-scale paradigmatic reforms take place. In the words of punctuated equilibrium theory, policy change appears to be more strongly punctuated (i.e. more leptokurtotic) than policy change in other areas (link to paper).
But how does this work? Doesn’t political compromise play a role in this area? Of course, it does. Regulation hardly ever fully prohibits or permits controversial behavior. When following the public debate on abortion, for example, one might assume that politicians have to decide between the prohibition of abortion (pro-life) and the permission of abortion (pro-choice). Empirically, however, actual abortion policy never reflects this dualistic and polarized debate. Instead, you typically have prohibition of abortion with some more or less restrictive exceptions or a permission of abortion under some more or less restrictive conditions. Furthermore, we find that policy-makers – more often than in other policy areas – exploit a trade-off between rules on morally sensitive behavior and the sanctions for rule violations in order to reach sustainable compromise. This means that the introduction of more permissive rules is often compensated by also introducing tougher sanctions in case these new rules are violated. The liberalization of basically any form of adult pornography in most western countries has often been accompanied with a strong commitment to strictly prosecute anyone crossing the last remaining legal boundary, which is the provision of child pornography (link to book; link to blog entry).
These political and societal compromise only become evident when policy change is conceptualized as two-dimensional; something we argue to be helpful in regulatory policy more generally (link to paper).
But how does this work? Doesn’t political compromise play a role in this area? Of course, it does. Regulation hardly ever fully prohibits or permits controversial behavior. When following the public debate on abortion, for example, one might assume that politicians have to decide between the prohibition of abortion (pro-life) and the permission of abortion (pro-choice). Empirically, however, actual abortion policy never reflects this dualistic and polarized debate. Instead, you typically have prohibition of abortion with some more or less restrictive exceptions or a permission of abortion under some more or less restrictive conditions. Furthermore, we find that policy-makers – more often than in other policy areas – exploit a trade-off between rules on morally sensitive behavior and the sanctions for rule violations in order to reach sustainable compromise. This means that the introduction of more permissive rules is often compensated by also introducing tougher sanctions in case these new rules are violated. The liberalization of basically any form of adult pornography in most western countries has often been accompanied with a strong commitment to strictly prosecute anyone crossing the last remaining legal boundary, which is the provision of child pornography (link to book; link to blog entry).
These political and societal compromise only become evident when policy change is conceptualized as two-dimensional; something we argue to be helpful in regulatory policy more generally (link to paper).
Publications
Adam, Christian, Knill, Christoph & Emma T. Budde. (2019). How Morality Politics determine Morality Policy Output – Partisan Effects on Morality Policy Change. Journal of European Public Policy.
Hurka, Steffen, Christian Adam & Christoph Knill (2016) Punctuated Equilibrium and Morality Policy Change. The Policy Studies Journal (early view).
Knill, Christoph, Christian Adam & Steffen Hurka. (2015). On the Road to Permissiveness? Change and Convergence of Moral Regulation in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Adam, Christian, Steffen Hurka & Christoph Knill. (2015). Four Styles of Regulation and their Implications for Comparative Policy Analysis. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice.
Adam, Christian, Christoph Knill & Steffen Hurka. (2015). Four Ways in which Policy-Makers Resolve Moral Dilemmas. OUPBlog: Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World: http://blog.oup.com/2015/08/policy-makers-moral-dilemmas/
Hurka, Steffen, Christian Adam & Christoph Knill (2016) Punctuated Equilibrium and Morality Policy Change. The Policy Studies Journal (early view).
Knill, Christoph, Christian Adam & Steffen Hurka. (2015). On the Road to Permissiveness? Change and Convergence of Moral Regulation in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Adam, Christian, Steffen Hurka & Christoph Knill. (2015). Four Styles of Regulation and their Implications for Comparative Policy Analysis. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice.
Adam, Christian, Christoph Knill & Steffen Hurka. (2015). Four Ways in which Policy-Makers Resolve Moral Dilemmas. OUPBlog: Oxford University Press's Academic Insights for the Thinking World: http://blog.oup.com/2015/08/policy-makers-moral-dilemmas/
Terminating Policies & Public Organizations
DESCRIPTION
In my earlier work, I have focused on the phenomenon of public sector termination. More specifically, I wondered under which conditions public sector organizations were actually terminated. On the one hand, the public sector is confronted with enormous efforts of public sector reform, of introducing competitive elements into public management and of measuring public sector performance. On the other hand, this appears to hardly ever lead to the termination of public sector organizations. I continue to be intrigued by this discrepancy between an ever more transparent, competitive and performance-oriented environment for public sector organizations and the enormous durability and longevity of these organizations.
My work in this area includes an attempt to review and bring order to the extant literature in this area (Link 1; a more recent review article is currently under review of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics). Furthermore, I analyzed public sector termination within the German public sector with a focus on federal agencies (nicht-ministerielle Bundesverwaltung). This work indicates that between 1949 and 2006 only 14 public organizations have been terminated – much less than within the federal bureaucracy of the US. Contrary to research in the US we could not find a relationship neither between political turnover, nor fiscal deficit and the probability of termination. In the German case three other factors seem to have triggered the termination of public organizations: public perception of organizational failure, dissolution of the organizational function, and the will to achieve gains in efficiency. (Link 2).
My work in this area includes an attempt to review and bring order to the extant literature in this area (Link 1; a more recent review article is currently under review of the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics). Furthermore, I analyzed public sector termination within the German public sector with a focus on federal agencies (nicht-ministerielle Bundesverwaltung). This work indicates that between 1949 and 2006 only 14 public organizations have been terminated – much less than within the federal bureaucracy of the US. Contrary to research in the US we could not find a relationship neither between political turnover, nor fiscal deficit and the probability of termination. In the German case three other factors seem to have triggered the termination of public organizations: public perception of organizational failure, dissolution of the organizational function, and the will to achieve gains in efficiency. (Link 2).
PUBLICATIONS
Adam, Christian, Bauer, Michael W, Knill, Christoph & Studinger, Philipp (2007). The Termination of Public Organizations: Theoretical Perspectives to Revitalize a Promising Research Area. Public Organization Review, 7: 221-236.
Adam, Christian, Bauer, Michael W & Knill, Christoph (2008). Ausmaß und Ursachen von Organisationsabbau in der deutschen Verwaltung: eine empirische Untersuchung der unmittelbaren Bundesverwaltung. Verwaltungsarchiv: Zeitschrift für Verwaltungslehre, Verwaltungsrecht und Verwaltungspolitik, 99: 154-173.
Adam, Christian & Michael Bauer. (2018). Policy and Organizational Termination. Oxford Encyclopedia of Politics Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Adam, Christian, Bauer, Michael W & Knill, Christoph (2008). Ausmaß und Ursachen von Organisationsabbau in der deutschen Verwaltung: eine empirische Untersuchung der unmittelbaren Bundesverwaltung. Verwaltungsarchiv: Zeitschrift für Verwaltungslehre, Verwaltungsrecht und Verwaltungspolitik, 99: 154-173.
Adam, Christian & Michael Bauer. (2018). Policy and Organizational Termination. Oxford Encyclopedia of Politics Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Policy Learning & Agent-Based Simulation
my own figures from the related paper
DESCRIPTION
Research on policy learning tends to suggest that policy diffusion is omnipresent. A large number of studies on policy diffusion has demonstrated that policy-making is an interdependent process that tends to take policy decisions taken within other jurisdictions into account. Sometimes because policy-makers find themselves to be in competition with these other jurisdictions; other times simply because policy-makers profit from learning about the positive or negative experiences made by these other jurisdictions. In my work on this topic, I have tried to suggest that we need to be careful to not jump to false positive conclusions. In other words, detecting patterns of policy diffusion with the help of spatial lag regressions can be misleading when a large share of states in one’s sample adopts a certain policy innovation within a relatively short period of time. In these situations, we risk to mistake independent policy adoptions for interdependent policy adoptions simply because we rely on the identification of spatial policy clusters within a constrained network of states. This proposition is based on agent-based computer simulation. It compares policy adoption dynamics within two distinct policy learning scenarios. In one scenario, policy-makers only learn from their own experience, while in the other scenario policy-makers strongly rely on the experience within other jurisdictions (Link 1)
PUBLICATIONS
Adam, Christian. (2015). Simulating Policy Diffusion through Learning: Reducing the Risk of False Positive Conclusions. Journal of Theoretical Politics: (early view available).