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	Policy Feedback Analysis	Public Sector Innovation Assessment
Field	Public Administration	Public Administration
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1993	2008
Originator	Paul Pierson	OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation
Type	Theoretical-analytical framework for policy effects on politics	Framework for assessing public-sector innovation and capacity
Seminal source	Pierson, P. (1993). When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change. World Politics, 45(4), 595–628.	OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (OPSI). Frameworks and case studies on public-sector innovation. Paris: OECD.
Aliases	Policy Feedback Theory Analysis, Feedback Effects Analysis, Policy-as-Cause Analysis, Self-Reinforcing Policy Analysis	Government Innovation Assessment, Public Innovation Measurement, Public-Sector Innovation Capacity Assessment, Innovation in Government Evaluation
Related	4	4
Summary	Policy feedback analysis examines how policies, once enacted, reshape the politics that follow — turning yesterday's policy effects into today's political causes. Drawing on Paul Pierson's foundational 1993 article 'When Effect Becomes Cause,' it holds that policies are not just outputs of politics but powerful forces that create resources and incentives for groups, build administrative capacities, and shape how citizens understand their interests and their government. By tracing these resource and interpretive feedback effects over time, the method explains why some policies become self-reinforcing and politically durable, why others undermine their own support, and why policy change is often path-dependent and hard to reverse.	Public sector innovation assessment is a structured method for examining how, how much and how effectively a government organization innovates — generating and implementing novel services, processes, policies and governance arrangements that create public value. Drawing on the work of the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation and on Mark Moore and Jean Hartley's analysis of innovations in governance, it classifies the types of innovation under way, assesses the conditions that enable or block them, evaluates their outcomes, and rates the organization's innovation capacity. Unlike private-sector innovation metrics built around patents and market share, public-sector assessment centers on public value, legitimacy and the distinctive incentives and constraints of government.