Policy innovations such as emission trading or feed in tariffs have proliferated in light of EU efforts of climate mitigation. The aim of this paper is to examine change in the area of climate mitigation and to analyze the role innovations play within overall national policy portfolios. Innovations include both new policy goals and the use of new policy instruments – innovative successions. Using the concept of climate policy activity, we investigate the association between the political effort towards climate mitigation and the innovativeness of the policy portfolio. In the empirical analysis we compare the policy activity in the sector of energy production in Austria, Germany, and the United Kingdom between 1998 and 2010. We find that the two countries with high levels (Germany, UK) are characterized by a continuous and growing level of policy innovations and innovative successions. In contrast, Austria develops an equilibrium of path-coherent successions after early innovations resulting in an overall moderate level of policy activity. These patterns can be linked both to general theories of policy change (in particular the process sequencing model) and to case study literature investigating the impact of institutions, actors, and policy styles on policy-making. The analysis further draws straightforward implications for policy makers to consider the role of policy innovation as part of the wider policy portfolio when determining its performance.
