Joint-Decision Trap

The joint-decision trap is the name for a particular situation that arises in the making of public policy. It is relevant for systems that are divided into layers of government where decisions are made jointly by the central and lower levels. These systems may turn into traps, in the sense that changes from the status quo are difficult. Actors are caught in a deadlock. The joint-decision trap model has had the most impact on the understanding of politics in the European Union (EU) and the German federal system but is relevant for a wide range of multilevel systems.

The joint-decision trap was identified by the German scholar Fritz W. Scharpf, first in German federalism and later in policy making in the EU. Scharpf developed the thesis in the early 1980s on the basis of many years of studies of institutional rigidities in German federal politics. The German version of the thesis was published in the mid-1980s, and the English version followed a few years later. The thesis was notable for two reasons. First, it was one of the first neo-institutional analyses of policy making in the EU. As such, it helped pave the way for, or even spearheaded the breakthrough of the neo-institutional paradigm into, studies of the EU. Second, the thesis avoided the sui generis approach to the EU that until then had tended to isolate studies of European integration from mainstream social science. Scharpf's approach was comparative. He sought to understand policy dynamics in the EU by comparing it with German federalism.

The joint-decision trap is a designation for a specific, but far from uncommon, institutional setting for policy making. Two institutional conditions are specified: (1) central government decisions must be directly dependent on the agreement of constituent governments and (2) the agreement of constituent governments must be unanimous or nearly unanimous. These conditions fit the cases of German federal politics and the EU reasonably well, at least at the time when Scharpf was writing. A logic of action follows from these conditions that leads to a stalemate and a severe bias in favor of the status quo. Whenever a proposed change of policy has a negative impact on just one actor, this actor will want to oppose the change unless it is compensated for the loss. Since all actors possess (near-)veto rights and because adequate compensation is often difficult, policy changes will often be blocked. In most cases, existing policy cannot be changed as long as it is preferred even by one or a few participants. In a dynamic environment, this is critical. The quality of public policy will gradually worsen. The result will be the continuation of past policies in the face of a changing policy environment and policies that are suboptimal even by their own original criteria.

To make matters worse, the joint-decision trap is also a trap in another sense. It not only leads to pathological policy choices, but it also blocks its own further institutional evolution. The present institutional setup represents the local optimum in the actors’ cost–benefit calculation. It is a Nash equilibrium. There is thus no way that joint-decision systems may transform themselves into institutional [Page 1362]arrangements of greater policy potential. Institutional change would require external intervention. All in all, the joint-decision trap paints a pessimistic picture of modern political systems and is close to structural determinism.

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