Category: Punctuated Equilibrium Theory

Policy Stability and Policy Change in China: A Systematic Literature Review of the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory

by Annemieke van den Dool & Jialin Cammie Li

To what extent do government policies in China change over time? Measuring the magnitude and frequency of policy change is an important step in understanding the driving forces of policymaking in China, which we know surprisingly little about despite the country’s large population and growing role in global governance. To answer this question, we turned to the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, which holds that government policies tend to be stable over time with occasional major change.

Although the PET’s explanatory power is considered to be universal, most English-language studies test the theory in democracies. In late 2021, we found only eight English-language peer-reviewed journal articles that apply the PET to China. These pioneering studies demonstrate the punctuated equilibrium pattern in policymaking in China, yet many questions remain unanswered, especially regarding policy change across different policy issues and venues, the frequency of large policy change, and information processing.

Remarkably, however, the Chinese-language PET literature on mainland China is much larger, albeit fragmented. We decided to conduct a systematic literature review to synthesize existing findings and identify research priorities, before we purposively design new studies. This is important given the effort and time required to conduct PET studies, which is exacerbated by limited data transparency and availability in China.

Through CNKI – China’s largest academic research database – we found 88 China-focused PET journal articles, which we analyzed in terms of methodology, operationalization, and patterns of policy change. We found that Chinese-language PET research is increasing. Moreover, contrary to the English-language PET literature, most Chinese studies are qualitative. Like in the English-language PET literature, weak operationalization of the PET core concepts is common.

One important takeaway from our systematic review is the consensus that government policymaking in China follows a punctuated equilibrium pattern with long periods of stability alternated with bursts of major policy change.

However, contrary to our expectations, our dataset contains only limited evidence in support of the hypothesis that government budgetary change in autocracies is more intensified compared to democracies, i.e., less frequent but larger budgetary adjustments. This hypothesis was first proposed by Chan and Zhao’s (2016) pioneering study on budget change in China. They and others have argued that state control over information flows inhibits the capacity of policymakers in autocracies to respond to problems in a timely and proportional manner because they miss out on important problem signals.

However, our analysis shows that there are very few studies that have tested this hypothesis in a systematic way. Moreover, we observed methodological variation in existing China-focused PET literature, which is illustrated in the table below. In our dataset, only one article (Li et al., 2019) is similar to Chan and Zhao (2016) in terms of methods and findings. All other studies are either qualitative in nature or differ in terms of period, scope (i.e., including only selected policy areas rather than the entire budget), data, and calculation methods. This makes it difficult to compare existing research findings.


Table 1. Regional-level punctuated equilibrium theory budget studies on China (Chinese and English)

To better understand policymaking in China and how it differs from other countries, we advocate for more quantitative PET studies on China that are broad in scope (rather than focusing on selected policy areas), cover a long period of time, and use the exact same methods as existing studies on democracies.A study that does this is Qin & Huang’s (2023) impressive analysis of national-level agenda diversity in China, which is methodologically similar to existing studies in democracies. In this study, the authors manually coded 40 years of State Council Gazettes and found a higher intensity of punctuations in China compared to democracies. We look forward to more such long-term studies across different policy venues.

References

Chan, K. N., & Zhao, S. (2016). Punctuated Equilibrium and the Information Disadvantage of Authoritarianism: Evidence from the People’s Republic of China. Policy Studies Journal, 44(2), 134-155.

Qin, X., & Huang, J. (2023). Policy punctuations and agenda diversity in China: a national level analysis from 1980 to 2019. Policy Studies, 1-21.

You can read the original article in Policy Studies Journal

van den Dool, A., & Li, J. (2023). What do we know about the punctuated equilibrium theory in China? A systematic review and research priorities. Policy Studies Journal. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12502

About the Authors

Annemieke van den Dool is an assistant professor in the Social Sciences Division at Duke Kunshan University in Jiangsu, China. Her research focuses on policymaking, policy process theories, and crisis management in China, especially in the areas of health and the environment. Learn more about her research at: http://www.annemiekevandendool.com.

Follow her on X @PubPolicyChina or on BlueSky @avandendool.bsky.social.

Jialin Li is an undergraduate student at Duke Kunshan University in Jiangsu, China. Li majors in Political Economy with a minor in Public Policy. Her research focuses on policy process theories and policy change in China.

Follow her on X @li_cammie or on BlueSky @cammieli.bsky.social.

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Measuring the Stasis: Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and Partisan Polarization

by Clare Brock & Daniel Mallinson

Gridlock and partisan polarization are popularly blamed for every American social and political ill–from the inability of Congress to pass much needed policy reform on a variety of issues, to the inefficacy of bureaucracy, to the divisive rhetoric espoused in presidential debates. The headlines are not inaccurate in their assessment of the division and dysfunction that currently plagues American politics; however, they do not tell the entire story either.

Partisan polarization and gridlock are always high salience, high attention problems. But they do not operate the same way across all policy areas, nor is it appropriate to explain all outcomes (or lack thereof) in terms of these two phenomena. Total gridlock as a result of polarization, for example, is simply not an accurate way to describe American governance. Congress does pass important legislation, including, but not limited to, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and the 2010 Affordable Care Act. In short, Congress can legislate. The question is then, when and on what issues can Congress act, and why does it seem so incapable of moving forward on so many other issues?

In “Measuring the stasis: Punctuated equilibrium theory and partisan polarization,” we use punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) to explore the role of partisan polarization in a stop-and-go policy process. PET predicts that the policy process is characterized by long periods of stability (gridlock), interspersed with brief periods of drastic change. In other words, the policy process is neither completely gridlocked, nor is it incremental; rather, policymaking tends to be alternatively highly stable and highly volatile. The degree of volatility is, in part, a function of how much friction is built into the governing system. Higher levels of friction will mean a more extreme pattern of punctuation – longer periods of stasis, but also, larger policy changes when sufficient pressure does build up to generate change.

We look at partisan polarization as a source of increasing friction in the political system, relying on annual data from federal budget authority and the passage of public laws from the Comparative Agendas Project to capture policy change, and NOMINATE scores that measure partisan polarization. These data stretch from 1948 to 2020 and allow us to evaluate how partisan polarization has affected budget-making and public law passage across multiple policy areas over the years.

Figure 1 shows the trends over time in partisan polarization (it is increasing) and budgetary and public law kurtosis. Kurtosis is a common way to measure the degree of policy punctuation. When it is high, there are long periods of incremental changes (i.e., stasis) that are punctuated by large policy changes. The higher the kurtosis, the more extreme the pattern of stasis and punctuation. As indicated by the trend lines, partisan polarization has been steadily rising since the 1960s, but underwent a considerable jump during the mid-1990s and again in the early-2000s. Likewise, while budget kurtosis was high in the 1950s and 60s, it dropped for the next two decades before a large and rapid increase between 1996 and 2012. Public law kurtosis remained steady until the 199s when it increased and then became more volatile. Notably, these dynamics settled back down after 2012.

Figure 1: Changes in U.S. National Government budget kurtosis and congressional polarization, 1957–2020.

Much like the increased budgetary kurtosis and declining passage of public laws illustrated in Figure 1, the same results were found when controlling for the presence of divided government (i.e., when one party controls the Presidency and the other controls at least one chamber of Congress). In other words, the observed effects were most likely caused by the increase in polarization and not by other political factors expected to cause gridlock. This suggests that polarization has contributed to a more volatile policy process, with prolonged periods of stasis and reactively large moments of change.

It is worth noting that there were differences in these effects depending on the policy area. For example, polarization seemed to increase volatility more in energy policy than in transportation policy. Future research could do more to investigate the nuances uncovered in our analysis, and we hope that scholars will continue examining how polarization impacts our society.

You can read the original article in Policy Studies Journal at

Brock, Clare and Mallinson, Daniel. 2023. “Measuring the Stasis: Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and Partisan Polarization.” Policy Studies Journal 00(0): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12519.

About the Authors

Clare Brock is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Colorado State University. Her research interests include public policy process, interest groups and advocacy, food politics, and the impact of polarization on policymaking.


Daniel J. Mallinson is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Penn State Harrisburg. His research interests include policy process theory (particularly policy diffusion and punctuated equilibrium theory), cannabis policy, energy policy, and the science of teaching and learning.

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Political Institutions, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, and Policy Disasters

by E.J. Fagan

The classic authoritarian promise is to impose order on a disorderly society.  Benito promised to make the trains run on time. Donald Trump promised that he alone could save the country. The Chinese Communist Party promises record economic growth. All authoritarians ask that, in return, societies give up their political freedoms. If they can just push through all the noise and enact their vision for public policy without friction, they will make your life better. It is a tempting bargain for many people.

However, these promises are false. The political institutions of liberal democracies–such as free speech, rule of law, a vibrant political society, and an egalitarian democratic system–also make it better off. Liberal democracies are not only freer societies, but also have higher economic growth and human development indices.

In “Political institutions, punctuated equilibrium theory and policy disasters,” I add to that literature, using punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) to examine why some countries experience more of the most extreme policy failures than others. Briefly, PET posits that governments show a pattern of policy change where very little happens for a long period of time followed by short periods of explosive change. Governments that ignore problems for longer tend to have more pronounced policy punctuations to make up for lost time, while governments that address problems sooner tend to enact smaller changes. Authoritarian countries tend to have an even more punctuated pattern of change: they ignore problems for longer, then pass very large changes when they finally get around to doing something about it.

I study two very different types of policy disasters in this article. First, I use data on financial crises, such as sovereign debt defaults, hyperinflation, and major bank failures. Second, I use data on high-casualty natural and technological disasters. Each dataset contains observations beginning in the 1960s.

Figure 1 shows the relative frequency of both types of disaster in governing systems, compared to liberal democracies. Notably, authoritarian countries experience nearly twice as many financial crises. Closed autocracies, such as China or North Korea, experience more natural and technological disasters, but the result is not statistically significant. Electoral autocracy, which hold non-competitive single-party elections, are even worse.

Electoral democracies, which hold competitive elections but lack the free speech, press, civil society, and rule of law of liberal democracies, perform just as poorly, or even worse, as authoritarian systems. This result suggests that democracy needs these liberal institutions to function. Without them, countries like Turkey and Nigeria struggle to detect and solve problems before they become disasters.

Figure 1: Regime Types and the Frequency of Policy Disasters

Figure 2 examines the relationship between policy disasters and political institutions. The results suggest that countries with political institutions that are more inclusive and allow for free society have fewer policy disasters. Further, countries with more streamlined institutions, such as unitary systems and parliamentary systems, are better at solving problems before they become disasters.

Figure 2: Policy Disasters and Political Institutions

In conclusion, authoritarians make far more mistakes than their liberal democratic counterparts.  Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen once observed that every famine in world history occurred under an authoritarian government. These results suggest that authoritarian mistakes are broader than just famines; detecting problems before they become severe is authoritarianism’s biggest weakness.

At the same time, these results are a warning for backsliding democracies. Some leaders may want to maintain some semblance of a democracy, but eliminate the annoying problems created by a free press, independent judiciary or empowered civil society. But, democracy can’t function without these institutions. Without them, leaders in weak democracies are flying blind.

You can read the original article in Policy Studies Journal at

Fagan, E. J.(2023). Political institutions, punctuated equilibrium theory, and policy disasters. Policy Studies Journal, 51: 243–263. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12460

About the Author

E.J. Fagan is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois Chicago. He studies agenda setting, think tanks, political parties and policymaking in the U.S. Congress.




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