The growth of policies, rules, and regulations: A review of the literature and research agenda

This article reviews the vibrant literature on policy growth in political science and adjacent disciplines, thus offering a conceptual framework for situating past future research efforts facilitating engagement between them. The first part presents important concepts that capture or aspects of it (rule growth, layering, mixes, accumulation, policyscapes, state) dominant measurement approaches. second provides an overview main drivers advanced democracies, discussing role societal demands, competition, institutional fragmentation, bureaucratic processes. third outlines multi-faceted far-reaching consequences policy, politics, polity. While is often portrayed as price to pay upholding democratic capitalist order constantly modernizing diversifying societies, existing also points negative emanating from increased state activity. Policy not only threatens overburden bureaucracies thereby undermine effectiveness; may transform structure make its politics more complicated conflictual.