Incrementalism and Its Alternatives

This chapter discusses how a classic perspective of public policy and public administration, incrementalism, contributes to questions of the politics of time. It argues that the contribution of incrementalism is not limited to emphasizing the advantages of small-scale and stepwise policy or institutional changes compared to comprehensive reform strategies. Beyond this, the chapter shows how contributions from diverse fields, ranging from comparative politics and behavioral insights to urban planning, develop the concept of incrementalism, and how these approaches can enrich debates on policy and institutional change. In particular, the common image of incrementalism as subservient to existing power structures is challenged. Linking the varieties of incrementalism to questions of politics of time helps to develop these insights.

Staggered Terms in Majoritarian and Nonmajoritarian Institutions

Staggered terms, that is, the partial renewal of terms of office, are widespread in both majoritarian and nonmajoritarian institutions, but they are little studied or understood. While the goals of staggered terms are to lengthen the time horizons of individual and institutions and to lead to more stable policy outcomes, this may not occur, as members often have the ability to influence their chances of obtaining additional terms of office and may alter their behavior in the pursuit of this. This chapter discusses the different forms staggered terms can take and the wide range of institutions where staggered terms are found. It then discusses the literature on the effects of staggered terms on behavior and outcomes, as well as how staggered terms have been used as a research design. Finally, the chapter sets out potential future research avenues.

Temporality of Authoritarian Regimes

The chapter surveys the existing research in political science and other social science disciplines investigating the temporal dynamics of authoritarian regimes. The chapter’s primary focus is on the incremental changes occurring in autocracies between their emergence and collapse, which has received relatively little attention in the scholarly literature so far. The chapter looks, in particular, at the evolution of authoritarian regimes toward individual or collective rule; at the regime cycles, caused, for example, by authoritarian elections; and at succession crises associated with death or resignation of leaders. Furthermore, it addresses the question of whether authoritarian regimes are better able to implement long-term and future-oriented policies than democracies. The chapter identifies a number of gaps in the literature on authoritarian dynamics relevant to future research.

Intergenerational Justice and Institutions for the Long Term

Institutions to address short-termism in public policymaking and to more suitably discharge our duties toward future generations have elicited much recent normative research, which this chapter surveys. It focuses on two prominent institutions: insulating devices, which seek to mitigate short-termist electoral pressures by transferring authority away to independent bodies, and constraining devices, which seek to bind elected officials to intergenerationally fair rules from which deviation is costly. The chapter first discusses sufficientarian, egalitarian, and prioritarian theories of our duties toward future generations, and how an excessive focus on the short term in policymaking may hinder that such duties be suitably fulfilled. It then surveys constraining and insulating devices, and inspects their effectiveness to address the epistemic, motivational, and institutional drivers of political short-termism as well as their intra- and intergenerational legitimacy.

How Is the Future Unknown?

The future is inherently uncertain. However, most policies are deliberate attempts to anticipate the future and to change and shape the future in an intended way. This chapter provides concepts for three key elements that are necessary to prepare for an unknown future. First, it conceptualizes what makes the future uncertain; uncertainty does not stem from the amount of time itself, but rather from the dynamics that can play out in that time. That is why it matters significantly if a system is complex or complicated; complex systems are much more dynamic and unpredictable, and complicated systems are much more stable and predictable. Second, there are different approaches for “studying” the dynamics; forecasting and foresight depart from entirely different angles of looking at the future, and both have their own strengths and weakness. Third, there are different organizational strategies for preparing for an unknown future; robustness, resilience, and adaptivity are three possible principles for organizing and preparing for uncertainty. In order to prepare for an uncertain future, or to study the uncertain future, scholars and policymakers should systematically take these three essential steps into account; how is the future unknown, how do we study the future, and what concept for anticipation do we apply here?

Political Leadership in the American Presidency

The leaders of democratic states are time-bound agents of political change. They probe for breaks in complex institutional settings. This paper distinguishes four temporalities of presidential leadership in the United States: term, succession, sequence, and thickening. Each tells time differently, and each in its own way authorizes and constrains the interventions of incumbents. For example, presidents tend to be more effective politically before the “midterm” elections, and they tend to be more effective in inaugurating a new political sequence than in the follow-through. The politics of presidential leadership are thoroughly caught up in these intercurrent effects. Formally, presidents all lay claim to the same office with the same powers. But their political authority changes profoundly from moment to moment according to its temporal context.

Time and Global Capitalism

This article cross-relates four epistemes of time (epochality, time reckoning, temporality, and coevalness) with four materializations of time (hegemony, conflict, crisis, and rupture). Understanding the terms within this framework allows us to depict global capitalism as epochally distinctive, riven by time conflicts, prone to recurring financial crises, and vulnerable to collective opposition. Time conflicts materialize across the areas of financialization and capital realization, worker exploitation and transnational supply chains, and the political economies of national and transnational state governance. Initially, these critical insights about the historicity and instability of global capitalism were obscured by the perpetual now-ness of corporate brand culture, 24/7 global television, and digital communication networks. Worldwide structural exclusions of the poor and their experiences of time were also obscured, a process the article defines as a “denial of coevalness.” With the 2008 financial crisis, the time conflicts of financialized capitalism became obviously unmanageable. National and transnational attempts to resolve the crisis simply reproduced the time conflicts of financialization. And structural exclusions of the global poor were further entrenched. However, these developments triggered a confluence of occupation movements, riots, protests, strike activity, and anti-austerity activism, raising the prospect of a sustained collective challenge to global capitalism.

Time Rules and Time Budgets in Legislatures

This chapter examines the impact of the alleged acceleration of social life on legislatures. Theoretically, acceleration can be regarded as a constraint or an opportunity. Conceptually, a number of time rules granting various subgroups of legislators different time budgets are used to cope with acceleration. The most important of these rules are those regarding agenda control and committee power. Different time rules and time budgets culminate in two procedural ideal types, talking and working legislatures. Empirically, both ideal types are clearly identifiable and have distinct consequences for public policies. A tentative long-term analysis shows no evidence for an ever-increasing acceleration of lawmaking in five lower chambers.

Varieties of Time in Comparative Historical Analysis

In recent years, comparative historical analysis (CHA) has become more cognizant of the role time plays in analyzing the past. It has begun to distinguish between clock-like, reversible, and measurable physical time and social, irreversible, and qualitative historical time. This chapter elaborates on this distinction and shows how it has enriched and refined CHA’s temporal vocabulary and defines three distinct strands of CHA: eventful analysis, longue durée, and macrocausal analysis. Each of these strands configures physical and historical time in distinct ways and thereby makes a distinct contribution in understanding and explaining macrohistorical phenomena.

Time and Moral Reasoning

This chapter explores the nexus of moral reasoning, politics, and time, especially in the realm of international politics. It argues that a crucial venue through which adversarial politics infiltrates moral reasoning is the latter’s need of temporalization. Temporalization is facilitated by temporal contexts and narratives so that the temporal boundaries of the situations-to-be-judged become essentially contested. The essential contestedness of temporal boundaries can subjugate normative language and moral reasoning to the dictates of adversarial politics and relativism. Temporalization can change morality into an instrument of power politics. To overcome these problems and salvage morality from subjugation and relativism, the chapter suggests that we should focus on international institutions, which can salvage moral reasoning by changing the structure of incentives facing adversaries, encouraging them not to aim predominantly at their own, domestic audience, but equally at international and universal audiences.