European Policy Analysis Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016 | Page 153

European Policy Analysis

of modernization, and the analytical value
of “timeships” that navigate the past by
floating on combinations of approaches
(Aucoin 1990; Pollitt 2008; Thomson and
Perry 2006). Especially in the context of
studies on the European Union, temporal
qualities such as timing, sequencing,
speed, and duration are conceptualized
as resources and restraints of political
action, leading to important insights
about problems of synchronization
and desynchronization in multilevel
systems (Goetz 2012; Goetz and MayerSahling 2009). In diverse fields such as
science, technology, and society studies
(STS) or comparative public policy,
the notion of “timescapes” has been
introduced to analyze the “political role
time plays in debates and justifications of
technoscientific and societal choices, in
the proclamation of urgent problems but
also in requests for citizens” compliance
with certain decisions—always in the
name of a specific future that has to be
achieved (Felt et al. 2014, 5; Straßheim
2015; Tucker 2014).

Finally, in a broader effort to
temporally redefine the modernization
process, several authors have begun
to analyze forces of acceleration and
deceleration (Rosa 2015; Scheuerman
2001). Following their assumptions,
acceleration in terms of technology,
social change and pace of life constitute a
basic principle of modernity (Rosa 2015,
23). Very much in line with some of the
research on democratic temporalities
cited above these authors diagnose a
fundamental dilemma of democratic
systems associated with the accelerationinduced dynamics of society: “The
aggregation and articulation of collective
interests and their implementation in
democratic decision making has been and

remains time intensive. For this reason
democratic politics is very much exposed
to the danger of desynchronization in
the face of more acceleratable social and
economic developments” (Rosa 2015,
254). While there are good reasons to
argue that the proponents of the paradigm
of acceleration might underestimate the
learning capacity of democracies (Merkel
and Schäfer 2015), the transformation of
time structures under the conditions of a
post-national constellation seems to pose
serious problems for policymaking. More
than 50 years ago, Schütz has already
pointed to the economic, social, and
political dynamics that seem to be more
relevant to us than ever while, at the same
time, being less and less in our control
(Schütz 1976 [1959]). It is thus for good
reasons that the problems and dilemmas
of time are currently at the center of
policy debates.

If we were to define the common
vantage point of these various approaches
and concepts, it most certainly is the focus
on “political time”, that is, “the very diverse
range of rules, norms, conventions, and
understandings that serve as a r esource
and constraint for political institutions
and actors regardless of their spatiotemporal location and affect many
aspects of political and policymaking
behavior, such as the timing of decision
making and the processes of attempting
to make public policies” (Howlett and
Goetz 2014, 478; Skowronek 2008).
Recent theories of time in policy analysis
more or less systematically distinguish
between a proto-sociological view on
time in policymaking and the distinctive
characteristics of political time as a variable in its own right. While political action
like every social action has a temporal
dimension, the analysis of political time

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