The feasibility syndrome: a challenge to public policy

Abstract This article advances the concept of the feasibility syndrome to explain a recurrent bias in public policy: the tendency to prematurely abandon or water down ambitious reforms based on anticipated implementation difficulties. While feasibility considerations are a legitimate component of policy design, we argue that they are frequently invoked in a manner that constrains political imagination, favors status quo policies, and hampers innovation. Through an analytical framework, we interrogate how feasibility is categorized and operationalized, and how feasibility concerns shape actual policy trajectories. We illustrate the syndrome with four case studies: Northen European green transition, international climate governance, Chinese property tax reform and the ungating China initiative. The final section explores how exaggerated pessimism can be countered through a behavioral lens. Mechanisms such as hedonic adaptation, threshold effects and norm cascades expand the perceived option space, suggesting that transformative policy may be more viable than assumed. By unmasking the feasibility syndrome, this article contributes to ongoing debates on bounded rationality, political feasibility and the recalibration of ambition in policy processes.