While there is broad scholarly agreement on the pattern of ever-growing policy stocks in modern democracies, research on the drivers of policy accumulation is still in its infancy. This holds in particular for the role of crises and external shocks. While the relationship between crisis events and the change of individual policies is fairly uncontested, we lack systematic knowledge on the extent to which crises trigger policy accumulation. To address this research gap, we analyze if and to what extent crises drive the accumulation of sectoral policies over time. Focusing on the development of German asylum policy, we show that crises constitute major “regulatory ratchets”. While the policy stock remained rather constant in noncrisis times, crisis events led to the addition of multiple new policy elements, moving policy accumulation toward a new “plateau”. Crises hence not only increase the likelihood of substantial policy change but also for policy accumulation.

中文翻译：

---

危机作为政策积累的驱动力：1975 年至 2019 年间德国庇护政策的监管变化和棘轮

尽管学术界对现代民主国家不断增长的政策存量模式达成了广泛共识，但对政策积累驱动因素的研究仍处于起步阶段。这尤其适用于危机和外部冲击的作用。虽然危机事件与个别政策变化之间的关系是无可争议的，但我们对危机触发政策积累的程度缺乏系统的认识。为了解决这一研究差距，我们分析了危机是否以及在多大程度上推动了部门政策随着时间的推移而积累。着眼于德国庇护政策的发展，我们表明危机构成了重大的“监管棘轮”。虽然政策存量在非危机时期保持相当稳定，但危机事件导致增加了多个新的政策要素，推动政策积累走向新的“高原”。因此，危机不仅增加了重大政策变化的可能性，也增加了政策积累的可能性。