Channels of Policy Diffusion and Upscaling: Insights from Local Climate Change Adaptation Policy in Germany

Abstract

Policy diffusion has emerged as an important concept for explaining how policy innovations spread across jurisdictions. Policymakers also rely increasingly on diffusion to promote policy spread, particularly where coercive means are unavailable or undesirable. However, the many different channels via which policies may voluntarily spread are insufficiently mapped by existing frameworks. The present study combines insights from policy diffusion, scaling, and governance literatures to distinguish between five different channels of voluntary policy spread across jurisdictions at the same level of government. It probes these channels studying local climate change adaptation policy leveraging original survey data from the state of Hessen in central Germany. The results indicate that the adoption of adaptation institutions, including plans and new staff positions, among Hessian municipalities is mainly linked with financed and coordinated upscaling channels, i.e. funding programs and municipal climate networks established by higher levels of government. The adoption of concrete adaptation measures, however, is rather linked with autonomous diffusion, i.e. independent exchange between mu-nicipalities, and persuasive upscaling, i.e. the provision of adaptation information by higher levels of government. Some channels also seem to be more effective among smaller municipal-ities. These results demonstrate the utility of the proposed framework and they suggest that a combination of different interventions may be necessary to effectively support adaptation policy development at the local level.