Comparer des méthodes

	Punctuated Equilibrium Analysis	Policy Feedback Analysis
Domaine	Public Policy	Public Administration
Famille	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Année d'origine	1993	1993
Auteur d'origine	Frank Baumgartner & Bryan Jones	Paul Pierson
Type	Theory of the policy process	Theoretical-analytical framework for policy effects on politics
Source fondatrice	Baumgartner, F. R., & Jones, B. D. (1993). Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 9780226039398	Pierson, P. (1993). When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change. World Politics, 45(4), 595–628.
Alias	PET, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, Baumgartner-Jones Theory	Policy Feedback Theory Analysis, Feedback Effects Analysis, Policy-as-Cause Analysis, Self-Reinforcing Policy Analysis
Apparentées	4	4
Résumé	Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET), developed by Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones in their 1993 book Agendas and Instability in American Politics, explains how policymaking is characterised by long periods of stability and incremental change interrupted by brief, dramatic bursts of major change. Borrowing the metaphor from evolutionary biology, it argues that the way an issue is understood (its 'policy image') and the institutional 'venue' in which it is handled normally reinforce a stable equilibrium — until attention shifts, the image is reframed, and rapid, large-scale change punctuates the calm.	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.