New challenges and established policy fields – Assessing stability and change in climate adaptation policy through a lock-in perspective (online first)

Impacts of climate change, such as sea-level rise and changes in annual precipitation, are becoming increasingly visible around the world and within Germany, thus increasing pressures to adapt. Forces of stability and change within established policy fields greatly determine the extent to which governance systems can adapt to worsening existing risks and new challenges. Employing a lock-in perspective and a comparative analysis of the governance of coastal risks in Schleswig-Holstein and water scarcity in Thuringia, we show how infrastructures, institutions, actors, and cognitive framing shape policy landscapes and together constitute dynamics of policy stability and change in the face of long-term climate impacts. This paper offers a comprehensive, systemic perspective of how adaptation challenges fit into established policy paradigms and programs as it highlights how non-material and material components are intertwined and can act as constraints to policy-making.