POLICY DISMANTLING

Abstract

One of the many ways in which politicians seek to respond to economic austerity pressure is to cut or even completely remove public policies that were introduced in better times. Yet, despite the many advances that have been made in policy research, relatively little is known about why, when, how and with what effects politicians engage in policy dismantling. This article takes stock of the existing literatures with the aim of stimulating a renewed focus on policy dismantling. It identifies a number of pertinent analytical dimensions (namely the origin of political preferences, prevailing opportunity structures, dismantling strategies, and effects/outcomes/impacts) and explores how they can be brought together to provide new insights into the comparative politics of policy dismantling. Finally, claims are made in relation to what policy dismantling research can offer to the understanding of both policy dynamics and politics more generally.

Keywords:

• Blame avoidance
• deregulation
• policy dismantling
• policy expansion
• policy termination
• public policy
• welfare state retrenchment

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are extremely grateful to Berthold Rittberger and three referees for their comments on an early version of this article. Funding was kindly provided by the European Commission under the CONSENSUS (project No. 217239). Andrew Jordan gratefully acknowledges the support of the Leverhulme Trust (F00204AR).