Policy feedback through multiple streams: The contrasting cases of carbon tax in Australia and Sweden

Sustainable transition to a low carbon (energy) system will require policy durability in climate change mitigation. Although policy feedback influences policy durability, its effects on policy design and subsequent policy implementation are not well understood. In this paper this gap is addressed by synthesizing policy feedback theory with the multiple streams framework to develop hypotheses on the relationship of feedback on problem, policy, and politics. This conceptualization is used to compare the contrasting experience of the adoption and implementation of carbon taxes in Australia and Sweden; while the latter expanded policy ambition in a step-wise manner, the former repealed policy adoption before implementation could even begin. A process tracing analysis of policymaking and implementation is conducted in the two countries using data from news articles, policy documents, and secondary literature. The results show that in Sweden feedback from policy design and implementation strengthened the coupling among the problem, policy and politics streams and facilitated a more stringent carbon price over time. In contrast, in Australia the feedback from policy design led to pronounced interest group activity, partisan politics, a change in public mood, and problem reframing. These dynamics were effected, and exploited, by a policy ‘terminator’ – during a window of opportunity – to re-couple the streams that led to repealing the policy adoption. This paper concludes with implications for research on policy studies and the governance of low carbon transitions.