Taking Stock after 40 Years of Comparative Land Policy Analysis (1980−2020). A Review of the Predictors of Regional Policy Output in Germany

ABSTRACT

The number of policy analyses at the Land level has been rapidly increasing, yet we lack a comprehensive and systematic review of this literature. To close this gap, we have collected the entire population of eighty-five analyses of policy output from the last four decades and evaluated their research designs and findings. This evaluation reveals a gap in cultural and law enforcement policies as well as in comparative analyses across several policy fields. Methodologically, there is a need for policy content to be captured in a way that facilitates statistical analysis over time. We then examine to which extent established theories of policy-making predict variance in policy output. The partisan composition of government is clearly the strongest predictor. Since institutions and public opinion are rarely rejected, they should be included more frequently in future policy analyses. Our findings are of interest for both federalism research and policy analysis in general.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental Data and Research Materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the Taylor & Francis website, https://doi.org/10.1080/09644008.2021.1999929.

Notes

1 The focus of this article is on the independent variables and their effects. We do not categorise policy differences reported by the authors by type or extent.

2 While our theoretical categories largely reflect established and widely used public policy theories, the East/West distinction is a factor specific to Germany.

3 In the bivariate analyses, we do not run significance tests because we collected the entire population.

4 Further analysis on this aspect is conducted in the earlier section ‘All Policy-Analyses – Parties’. For other theoretical categories such a detailed analysis was infeasible due to the lower number of tests.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Iris Reus

Iris Reus is a doctoral researcher at the Institute of Politics at Heidelberg University. Her research interests focus on federalism and policy-analysis, particularly regional policy-making and coordination in federations. She has published in journals such as German Politics, Regional & Federal Studies, and Comparative Governance and Politics, among others.

Stephan Vogel

Stephan Vogel is a research fellow at the Cologne Center for Comparative Politics, University of Cologne. His major research interests are territorial politics and policy analysis, particularly (de)centralisation and policy-making in federations. He has published in journals such as Publius: The Journal of Federalism and Comparative Governance and Politics.