On democratic intelligence and failure: The vice and virtue of incrementalism under political fragmentation and policy accumulation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Adam, Christian; Hurka, Steffen; Knill, Christoph; Steinebach, Yves
• 署名单位: Zeppelin University; University of Munich
• 刊物名称: GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0952-1895
• DOI: 10.1111/gove.12595
• 发表日期: 2022
• 关键词: partisan conflict; PUNCTUATED EQUILIBRIUM; Government formation; CHALLENGES; science; CONSEQUENCES; termination; PARADIGMS; DYNAMICS; MODEL

摘要

The vice and virtue of incrementalism have been the subject of a long-standing academic debate. This debate, however, lacks a dynamic perspective that analyzes how the transformation of politics-mainly in the form of increasing levels of political fragmentation within decision-making arenas and increasing complexity of policy-mixes-affects the role of incrementalism. We argue that both of these trends make the virtues of incrementalism politically even more valuable than they have always been. At the same time, this proliferation of incrementalism comes at the costs of overlooked second-order effects. Since the empirical reality of incrementalism is primarily one that results in incremental policy accumulation, it continuously adds implementation burdens, enhances the demandingness of substantive policy debate, and makes effective science communication more difficult. Thereby, accumulative incrementalism becomes one source of pressure on three cornerstones of legitimate governance: effective policy implementation, sophisticated policy debate, and evidence-based policymaking.