Decarbonizing Housing in Times of Crisis: The Politics and Consequences of Instrument Accumulation in German Cities

This paper advances research on policy accumulation by examining its politics in the decarbonization of housing across four German cities. It focuses on the targets and instruments collectively known as the heat transition, a key component of Germany’s expanding climate policy stock. The paper argues that political choices in the formulation and implementation of the heat transition decoupled policy instruments from their intended goals, leading instruments to shape public policy according to their own logics and produce unintended, partly contradictory, effects. It shows that administrative elites accelerated instrument creation by bypassing established channels for incorporating implementation expertise and leaving key design elements underspecified, resulting in a path-dependent allocation of responsibilities to the local level and the reinforcement of structural implementation vulnerabilities. In response, local authorities strategically aligned instruments with their organizational and political interests, shaped by structural vulnerabilities and the degree of political polarization. Drawing on an institutionalist conception of policy instruments, the paper shows how the politics of accumulation shape the problem-solving capacity of contemporary states.