Designing Durable Policy Reforms: Gradual Layering in the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy over Three Decades

The study of policy reform has tended to focus on single stage reforms taking place over a relatively short period. Recent research has drawn attention to gradual policy changes unfolding over extended periods. One strategy of gradual change is policy layering in which policy designers introduce new dimensions to policy by adding new policy instruments or by redesigning existing ones to address new concerns. The limited research on single stage policy reforms highlights that these may not be enduring in the post-enactment phase when circumstances change. We argue that gradual policy layering may create sustainability dynamics that are quite different and can result in lasting reform trajectories. Policy layering affects the interest configuration within the policy field by influencing policy actors’ strategies. This has an important impact on whether or not actors remain passive, or mobilise in support of —or in opposition to— the changes which, in turn, determines the durability of the reform trajectory. The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has changed substantially over the last three decades. In response to changing circumstances and emerging policy concerns, new layers have been added. International trade and environmental concerns were introduced from the mid-1980s and early 1990s, and subsequently strengthened. This succession of reforms, brought about through a continuing layering process, proved durable in the long term and resilient to attempts to reverse the policy in the lead-up to the 2013 CAP reform when institutional and political circumstances changed in favour of those who wanted the CAP to backtrack to previous policy designs. The twin trajectory of redesigning EU farm price support into WTO-compatible decoupled payments and introducing environmental measures into the CAP was complementary. Greening served the purpose of legitimising decoupled payments as the new main farm support instrument to the public, and even to farmers themselves.