Measuring Policy Capacity in Europe: A QCA Application on Climate Adaptation Plans for an SGI-based Index

This article addresses a fundamental challenge in public policy scholarship: how to measure systemic analytical capacity in rigorous, comparable terms. While policy capacity has become central to understanding governance effectiveness, empirical measurement remains contested, particularly at the systemic level where capacity is easily conflated with contextual factors. Drawing on climate change adaptation as an empirical domain, the article develops a configurational approach to operationalise and measure systemic analytical capacities (SACs). The study employs a two-step fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) combining the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) with an in-depth content analysis of Climate Change Adaptation Plans (CCAPs) across 23 European countries. CCAPs are theorised not merely as policy outputs but as outcomes of systemic analytical capacity, requiring long-term planning, scientific integration, multi-level coordination, and mobilisation of specialised expertise. The analysis identifies the “Governing with Foresight” dimension of the SGI as the configuration of conditions consistently associated with high SACs. This finding provides an accessible, evidence-based tool for measuring an otherwise elusive governance dimension. The article contributes to ongoing debates on policy capacity measurement by demonstrating how configurational methods can bridge theoretical refinement and empirical application. It offers policymakers a diagnostic framework for assessing analytical infrastructures and identifies directions for future comparative research on political and operational capacities across diverse institutional contexts.