Policy growth and maintenance in comparative perspective

Abstract Policy growth comes with multiple challenges for policy implementation. Congested policy portfolios increase the likelihood of interactions and contradictions between different policy objectives and instruments. Moreover, policy growth can lead to difficulties during implementation when many public and private organizations must cooperate and manage increasing complexity and overlapping responsibilities. Consequently, policy growth should ideally be accompanied by maintenance activities, namely institutional reforms aimed at (1) preventing policy contradictions, or (2) improving administrative coordination. We test this relationship through a comparative analysis that examines the level of policy growth and maintenance activities in 13 OECD countries in environmental and unemployment policy over 35 years. We find that policy growth and maintenance activities are not systematically linked but occur independently, even when controlling for the influence of moderating factors such as government effectiveness or the presence of veto players. Consequently, modern governments seem to struggle with managing the downsides of policy growth.