Agenda Mobilisation and Radical Policy Change: What About the Role of Institutional Friction? Some Insights from the Regulation of Same-Sex Partnerships in Germany and Spain

Howlett and Cashore (2007) recommend more careful investigations of exogenous and endogenous factors as sources of radical policy change. I think the agenda-setting perspective offers a valuable tool since it distinguishes analytically and empirically between processes of outside and inside mobilization (cf. Cobb and Elder 1972). The underlying paper comes from this tradition and contributes primarily to the first research question of the panel. The main argument is that consensual and majoritarian structures in the executive-legislative relation determine government’s decision agenda and thus intervene between public agenda mobilization and radical policy change. The idea relies on Jones’ et al. (2003, 2009) concept of ‘institutional friction’. The more government’s discretion to react is limited though formal and informal rules and procedures, the more difficult it is to respond comprehensively to outside disturbances. The argument is analysed via a controlled comparison of the regulation of same-sex partnerships in Germany and Spain between 1996-2012. Both federal countries belong to the ‘religious world’ (Engeli et al. 2012) and offer similar degrees of public agenda mobilization. However, Germany and Spain vary in terms of the type and dynamic of policy change (incremental vs. radical). The paper shows that the high degree of institutional friction in Germany inhibited radical policy change. Government’s discretion to respond was limited by the veto-power of the second chamber and later on by dissent in the government coalition. In Spain, on the other hand, societal demand could channel through smoothly due to a weak second chamber and a single-party minority government able to find support in the opposition. In conclusion, the concept of ‘institutional friction’ seems to be a valuable approach for explaining the interplay between agenda mobilization and policy change. The findings suggest also a more precise measurement of the concept as it has been done so far.