Buzzwords like ‘Abundance’ and ‘Affordability’ are out. Learning policy lessons from the global community is in.
Something is wrong with American policymaking. There are obvious issues: hyperpolarization, deep public distrust of government, and outdated institutions make it difficult to implement durable laws. Pundits and think tanks try to overcome those issues by developing new framings, like ‘Abundance’ and ‘affordability’, that too often lack specific policy ideas and instead put style before substance.
Rather than get caught up in the buzzword flavor of the month, the policymaking ecosystem should study what’s actually working. Many other countries have figured out how to develop cohesive policy agendas that deliver on their promises and build trust with constituents, resulting in improved outcomes in education, healthcare, housing, transportation, and energy—things that America still struggles with.
We can learn valuable lessons from those governments about how to build more durable, more responsive, and more effective policy. The models discussed below offer a starting point; examples of how prioritizing implementation, outcomes-first design, and long-term and inclusive planning can result in better governance—across countries with very different political systems.
What’s not working?
The policy tools we currently have at our disposal are not working. Faced with a dysfunctional Congress, policymakers rarely pass new laws and instead stretch old ones to fit purposes they weren’t designed for. When well-designed policies are passed, agencies often lack the workforce, funding, and organizational infrastructure to actually implement those ideas. This failure to deliver further hurts an already declining level of public trust in institutions, but it also means that Americans lose out on basic needs. Homeownership feels unobtainable for growing portions of the country. An outdated grid and rising energy prices strain communities (while an ongoing war in Iran worsens those issues and further drains federal funding). Oversized, high-emissions cars create health and safety hazards while accessing healthcare to treat those hazards can bankrupt a family.
The federal policy ecosystem’s responses have been underwhelming, despite the urgency. Consistent policy confusion, poor organization, and hyperpolarization—exacerbated by the Trump administration’s destruction of agency infrastructure and workforce—all contribute to the struggle for durable and meaningful change. The ecosystem lacks a unifying policy objective that can act as a foundation for policymakers, a set of guiding strategic principles to return to when designing and implementing policy.
Instead, those in the Beltway look for new ways to package broad solutions. Movements like “Abundance,” or slogans like “affordability” and “dominance” might be catchy, easily marketable, and play to a big audience (or the right political network) but they lack technical substance and specificity. Abundance has been applied to everything from large-scale clean energy supply to more effective prisons, and we still don’t have a roadmap for how to actually achieve energy affordability. Even “social justice” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” concepts which have real academic foundations and a deep history of implementation in a range of socioeconomic fora, were co-opted after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and applied to a whole universe of policies that didn’t always reflect the original goals of the movements and in turn undermined the actual meaning of those words.
That approach might work to win elections, bump up polling numbers, or increase influence in the policy world, but it doesn’t actually get tangible results. Ultimately, Americans care less about Abundance than they do about outcomes: affordable houses; sustainable wages; reliable energy; quality education and childcare. So how do we get policymaking apparati to focus on deciding on the present before the wrapping paper?
How do we get it right?
To start, we can look to the rest of the world. Other governments have been successfully putting substance ahead of style—and delivering on their promises—for decades. America’s insular attitude towards domestic policymaking is supported by a culture of American exceptionalism and a view of ourselves as the ideal democratic state (although we invented some of those metrics).
That view is both incomplete and inaccurate, leaving out imperialistic tendencies, hundreds of years of oppressive policies, and the bargaining strength of being the world’s sole superpower. America is outpaced on a number of critical fronts by other countries. Building rail infrastructure costs 50% more and takes longer in the U.S. than in Europe or Canada. Americans pay more per person on healthcare than other developed countries despite faring worse on certain outcomes, including higher maternal mortality rates and lower life expectancy. Poverty rates are some of the highest among OECD countries, with more workers earning “low pay” than any other OECD country.
That view is also limiting. It encourages policymakers to continue the ‘style over substance’ feedback loop, investing in ideas that are culturally aligned with that perspective instead of in new, ambitious ones. Those new and ambitious policy ideas don’t have to be novel – they could come from places that are succeeding where we’re falling behind.
Many other countries have figured out how to put substance first. The examples below start with a more internally cohesive theory of domestic policy or central guiding principles, like strong government capacity, outcome-focused policy design, and an emphasis on social wellbeing, and build the messaging platform later. They focus on reflecting the actual wants and needs of constituents rather than projecting how they think the public feels about government.
Nordic countries
Several Nordic countries, including Sweden, Finland, and Norway, illustrate one model: a welfare state with social democratic tendencies, robust social safety nets, and high levels of trust and public investment in social goods. These countries start with basic principles—that government should provide a reasonable standard of living for all citizens—and the policy substance follows from there.
Their systems of governance are built on a tripartite policymaking structure that allows for meaningful, long-term engagement between government, industry, and labor. America might not have the infrastructure (or the desire) to implement a tripartite system, but it points to deeper values that underscore their policymaking. The Nordic model values public participation—not just on one-off projects, but throughout the process. It’s not direct democracy, but co-creation by bodies that represent the organized interests of major economic players. Public participation that’s meaningful, consistent, and long-term creates buy-in from those interests and durable policy. It’s also something that the United States consistently grapples with.
Nordic governance also supports policy design that’s targeted at specific outcomes, but integrates considerations from multiple sectors. Sweden has spent decades investing in clean energy technologies and deploying clean electricity—but has also implemented cross-cutting policies that target other areas of the transition. Several are aimed at reducing energy poverty, including subsidies, energy-inclusive rent, builder incentives, and efficiency standards. These policies are outcome-based, but are coordinated across multiple ministries rather than being siloed within one. The result is an “energy” policy that supports a clean transition but cuts across social services, labor, housing, and energy. The United States has tried this approach before with bills like the Inflation Reduction Act, but issues with implementation and government capacity limited the success of the bill.
Another example is Finland’s ‘housing first’ initiative. It’s firmly rooted in a tangible outcome—securing housing for everyone, shored up with social service support and community integration. It’s been hugely successful, reducing long-term homelessness by 68% since 2008. Finland’s program is deeply integrated across federal, state, and local governments and civil society organizations, providing proof of concept for community navigator mechanisms that allow community expertise to steer federal dollars.
These policies deliver on their promises: housing, energy access, poverty reduction. Combining public participation with real delivery supports a continuous positive feedback loop of high trust, which creates an easy argument for more investment in the government that implements these policies. That’s necessary, because the reason this model delivers so well is that it relies on a public sector that’s well-funded by high tax rates and redistributive economic policies (which in turn are backed up by the economic powers of the tripartite system). Americans may balk at high taxes, but that’s partially because they don’t see the impact in their daily lives. They don’t trust the government to do the right thing with their money. Breaking into that low-trust cycle is difficult, but we have to start somewhere.
China and Singapore
Singapore and China showcase another model. Although lacking in political freedoms and public participation, both countries offer examples of how to build transportation, energy, and housing infrastructure fast and well. At the core of this building is an emphasis on governance and implementation, long-term planning, and public investment in human capital.
Singapore is consistently held up as an example of good governance in both policy design and implementation. It’s fully integrated scenario-planning and foresight tools into its policymaking processes, allowing government to be more proactive in tackling barriers and achieving desired outcomes. This type of long-term planning is only possible with detailed policy agendas and sustained commitment to outcomes. It also requires investment in and retention of a talented civil service, which additionally supports cross-government functionality, program longevity and durability, and smooth implementation of policy.
The state’s successful delivery on social outcomes like education (students comfortably outperform the OECD average), healthcare (high life expectancy and low maternal mortality at lower-than-average prices) and economic development (doubling GDP per person over the last 20 years) helps reinforce trust in the ruling party, further strengthening its ability to continue to have outsized agency in policymaking. Some of these elements are harder to implement in the United States, given the inherent instability of changing administrations, but it underscores the need for agreed-upon foundational principles regardless of who’s in power.
China employs similar strategies. Both China and Singapore have well-developed industrial policies – something the U.S. has lacked for several decades. China has spent years intentionally subsidizing specific industries, like transportation, clean energy, and technology, with comprehensive public spending strategies and long but detailed implementation timelines. It invested in both human and physical infrastructure, now boasting the largest industrial workforce in the world who are trained to continuously innovate. These investments have paid off: China leads the world in solar panel and electric vehicle manufacturing, has rapidly expanded its transportation networks, and has built so much housing that it helped contribute to a real estate crisis. This targeted, long-term engineering of economic development in both countries underscores the power of policy durability, strong governance, and administrative discipline in public sector delivery.
Similar to the Nordic model, Chinese and Singaporean success with delivering on outcomes is the result of high levels of trust. But their models also work because those governments enjoy a high level of agency that only exists because of the lack of liberal democracy. But the underlying principle—that government needs some amount of empowerment to make decisions—is not incompatible with U.S. aspirations. Many of the ‘lessons learned’ reports on the successes and failures of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act lament slow decision-making that was drawn out by consensus-based processes and multiple layers of overlapping approvals across agencies. Adopting principles of agency and empowered decision-making could speed up countless government processes, improving delivery.
None of these models is perfect. Rapid industrialization in China has led to massive pollution issues and Singapore struggles with an over-reliance on foreign labor and income inequality. Both countries have serious democratic and human rights challenges. In Sweden and Norway, consistent problems with anti-migrant sentiment sow discord and threaten policy successes. Americans should be looking beyond the surface of these policies. We don’t need to copy the designs verbatim, but rather figure out what principles we want to borrow form the foundation of our own policy agenda.
What those principles should be is an open question, but not an impossible one. Americans value social goods, and they trust their government when they see the impact of their investments, but they also want choice. How do we identify those principles, translate them into real policy designs, and then implement them sustainably? How do we scale up existing trust and rebuild trust that’s broken? How can we create an administrative state that actually delivers on its promises to constituents?
Building a more positive policy vision
There’s no silver bullet, making the revolving door of movements like Abundance even more frustrating. Those wrappings without substance, promising catch-all solutions, take up oxygen that could be better spent taking a step back, trying to figure out what kind of country we want to live in, and learning from those who are making it happen.
The good news is that there is quite a bit of agreement among the public when it comes to that vision. Like many other communities around the world, we want our lives to be better. We want safe and healthy communities, a stable financial system, freedom of choice, and systems that deliver on the promises they make. Other countries have succeeded in achieving some of those outcomes. It’s worth looking around to see what we could learn.
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