When negative feedback becomes self-undermining: instrument termination in environmental regulation

Abstract Termination of public policy is a notoriously challenging research topic. Our study focuses on how policy feedback dynamics can potentially result in termination. The concept of policy feedback has mainly been applied to explain policy continuity. Recent scholarly advancements have directed attention to negative and self-undermining feedback, offering nuanced insights into feedback dynamics and their impact on policy evolution. This perspective has potential to enrich our understanding of policy termination processes. Utilizing the concepts of mixed and self-undermining feedback, this analysis demonstrates how a specific policy instrument may be discontinued due to accumulation of negative feedback that may eventually become self-undermining when a viable alternative instrument emerges on the policy menu. The case of Danish nitrogen pollution regulation illustrates this phenomenon in which the primary instrument—a nitrogen application cap—was terminated as the major regulatory instrument due to negative feedback becoming self-undermining.