method note

Positional drift — has the policy mix moved toward more state, year by year?

Every government in the corpus is coded on the framework axes (fiscal/regulatory/monetary/institutional, ±/0/mixed × magnitude). Cumulating those moves over time inside each country produces a drift trajectory — whether the policy mix has expanded the state or pulled back from it. The composite statist-drift index sums the pro-state axes (spending, transfers, tax progressivity, sectoral subsidy, regulation, monetary expansion) minus the pro-market axes (labour-market flexibility, product-market competition, trade openness, central-bank independence). A higher line means the country has shifted toward a larger or more redistributive state since the corpus's start; a lower line means it has shifted away.

Important: this measures the direction of policy moves over time, not the absolute level. Greece and Italy show negative drift partly because the EU memoranda forced sustained austerity and privatisations — they moved toward market-orthodox policy from a much higher starting level. Conversely, Germany's strongly positive drift reflects Energiewende, Bürgergeld, Sondervermögen, and the post-2019 spending wave — choices made from a relatively constrained baseline. Read each line as "net direction of legislated policy since 1976."

Countries

Year range

1976–2025

Axes coded

Regional panels

All 93 countries — cumulative direction & recent slope

Two numbers per country. Cumulative is the legislated drift since 1976 — the sum of every movement's axes_summary moves up to today. Recent (10y) is the slope over the last 10 years — what direction the country is moving now.

Why these can disagree: Canada sits near the top of the "cumulative market drift" column at −39, but its recent slope is +0.10/yr — i.e., mildly statist. That's because Mulroney + Chrétien-Martin's 1984–2006 deficit slaying (GST 1991, NAFTA 1994, the canonical Paul Martin 1995 budget) was the largest fiscal consolidation in modern OECD history; Trudeau Jr's 2015–2025 statist moves haven't been large enough to offset it cumulatively. Same pattern for the UK (cumulative −2, recent +3.2/yr — Brexit-era fiscal expansion + Truss + Starmer all statist), Australia (cumulative −15, recent +1.9/yr — Albanese), and New Zealand (cumulative −28, recent +0.4/yr — Ardern net statist before Luxon partial reversal). The cumulative column tells you where the country sits relative to its 1976 baseline; the recent column tells you where it's headed.

Net statist drift (55)

Country	Cumulative	Recent (10y)
United StatesUSA 25 moves	+59.0	+2.70/yr
GermanyDEU 20 moves	+46.0	+3.70/yr
IranIRN 9 moves	+33.0	+0.20/yr
VenezuelaVEN 6 moves	+33.0	+0.00/yr
EthiopiaETH 5 moves	+32.0	-0.40/yr
AustriaAUT 15 moves	+31.0	+2.90/yr
FranceFRA 19 moves	+29.0	+1.50/yr
JapanJPN 19 moves	+29.0	+1.60/yr
IrelandIRL 17 moves	+24.0	+5.00/yr
ThailandTHA 16 moves	+24.0	+1.60/yr
MalaysiaMYS 9 moves	+22.0	+1.70/yr
ArgentinaARG 14 moves	+19.0	+0.60/yr
BoliviaBOL 9 moves	+18.0	+1.20/yr
South KoreaKOR 11 moves	+18.0	+1.10/yr
ColombiaCOL 13 moves	+17.0	+1.70/yr
ZimbabweZWE 2 moves	+16.0	+0.70/yr
CubaCUB 1 moves	+15.0	+0.00/yr
NicaraguaNIC 2 moves	+15.0	+0.00/yr
SwedenSWE 14 moves	+15.0	+2.10/yr
RussiaRUS 8 moves	+14.0	+1.00/yr
AustraliaAUS 9 moves	+12.0	+1.90/yr
PolandPOL 16 moves	+12.0	+2.80/yr
AlgeriaDZA 1 moves	+11.0	+0.00/yr
Democratic Republic of the CongoCOD 1 moves	+9.0	+0.00/yr
IraqIRQ 1 moves	+9.0	+0.00/yr
CambodiaKHM 1 moves	+9.0	+0.00/yr
MyanmarMMR 1 moves	+9.0	+0.00/yr
TanzaniaTZA 2 moves	+9.0	-0.10/yr
BangladeshBGD 4 moves	+8.0	+0.50/yr
KuwaitKWT 1 moves	+8.0	+0.00/yr
AfghanistanAFG 1 moves	+7.0	+0.00/yr
ChileCHL 9 moves	+7.0	+1.00/yr
LaosLAO 1 moves	+7.0	+0.00/yr
SyriaSYR 1 moves	+7.0	+0.00/yr
AngolaAGO 1 moves	+6.0	+0.00/yr
TunisiaTUN 1 moves	+6.0	+0.00/yr
BulgariaBGR 1 moves	+5.0	+0.00/yr
BelarusBLR 1 moves	+5.0	+0.00/yr
Costa RicaCRI 1 moves	+5.0	+0.00/yr
MoroccoMAR 1 moves	+5.0	+0.00/yr
TaiwanTWN 2 moves	+5.0	+0.20/yr
LebanonLBN 2 moves	+4.0	-0.40/yr
Papua New GuineaPNG 1 moves	+4.0	+0.00/yr
SenegalSEN 1 moves	+4.0	+0.00/yr
KenyaKEN 6 moves	+3.0	+0.10/yr
United KingdomGBR 21 moves	+2.0	+3.80/yr
NigeriaNGA 11 moves	+2.0	-0.60/yr
NorwayNOR 9 moves	+2.0	+0.60/yr
Saudi ArabiaSAU 8 moves	+2.0	-0.60/yr
SlovakiaSVK 7 moves	+2.0	+0.80/yr
BelgiumBEL 14 moves	+1.0	+1.90/yr
Cote d'IvoireCIV 1 moves	+1.0	+0.00/yr
IndiaIND 15 moves	+1.0	-0.10/yr
UruguayURY 5 moves	+1.0	-0.50/yr
South AfricaZAF 4 moves	+1.0	+0.10/yr

Net market drift (36)

Country	Cumulative	Recent (10y)
GreeceGRC 14 moves	-36.5	-0.70/yr
CanadaCAN 10 moves	-29.0	+0.10/yr
PortugalPRT 10 moves	-28.0	-0.30/yr
FinlandFIN 12 moves	-27.0	+0.10/yr
BrazilBRA 14 moves	-23.0	-1.10/yr
IsraelISR 16 moves	-20.0	+0.60/yr
New ZealandNZL 10 moves	-20.0	+0.10/yr
CzechiaCZE 10 moves	-19.0	+0.30/yr
VietnamVNM 9 moves	-19.0	-0.50/yr
DenmarkDNK 9 moves	-17.0	+0.50/yr
ZambiaZMB 2 moves	-17.0	-0.60/yr
Sri LankaLKA 4 moves	-15.0	-1.00/yr
ItalyITA 27 moves	-14.0	+2.70/yr
SpainESP 15 moves	-13.0	+2.90/yr
United Arab EmiratesARE 8 moves	-12.0	+0.00/yr
PeruPER 11 moves	-12.0	+0.30/yr
NetherlandsNLD 18 moves	-11.0	+3.20/yr
SingaporeSGP 2 moves	-11.0	+0.00/yr
GhanaGHA 2 moves	-9.0	+0.00/yr
HungaryHUN 10 moves	-8.0	+0.60/yr
SwitzerlandCHE 3 moves	-7.0	+0.00/yr
CzechoslovakiaCSK 2 moves	-7.0	+0.00/yr
EgyptEGY 8 moves	-7.0	-0.10/yr
PakistanPAK 11 moves	-7.0	-0.30/yr
TurkeyTUR 10 moves	-7.0	+0.00/yr
EcuadorECU 10 moves	-6.0	-1.20/yr
BotswanaBWA 1 moves	-5.0	+0.00/yr
IndonesiaIDN 10 moves	-5.0	+0.40/yr
RwandaRWA 2 moves	-5.0	-0.20/yr
UkraineUKR 1 moves	-5.0	+0.00/yr
PhilippinesPHL 9 moves	-4.0	-0.40/yr
RomaniaROU 2 moves	-4.0	-0.30/yr
MexicoMEX 9 moves	-2.0	+1.10/yr
YugoslaviaYUG 2 moves	-2.0	+0.00/yr
ChinaCHN 7 moves	-1.0	+0.00/yr
El SalvadorSLV 3 moves	-1.0	-0.30/yr

2 countryies at 0 (no axes_summary moves coded yet): KAZ, SUN

Pick countries — overlay any combination

Click ISO3 codes to toggle countries on the chart. Region buttons swap to a fixed regional set in one click. Each line is the country's cumulative composite drift from 1976.

Composite statist-drift by region

One chart per region; up to 12 most-coded countries per panel for legibility. The full 93-country leaderboard sits below.

Liberal democracies — North America, Europe, Oceania, Japan, Korea, Israel

12 of 28 in the corpus

The 'managerial flywheel' panel — countries with the most institutional density and longest free-market priors. If the creep hypothesis is universal, this is where it should be most visible.

Latin America

12 of 14 in the corpus

Punctuated by stabilisation episodes, populist swings, and commodity cycles. Drift is non-monotonic by design — the boom-bust pattern is the story.

Asia-Pacific (non-OECD)

12 of 17 in the corpus

Most countries here started at high state-share and drifted market-ward via reform episodes (Deng, 1991 India, Doi Moi). Drift index measures direction not level.

Middle East & North Africa

12 of 12 in the corpus

Mixed regime types; Turkey + Iran show fiscal heterodox cycles, Gulf states show state-led developmental architecture, Egypt shows IMF-conditioned austerity moves.

Sub-Saharan Africa

12 of 14 in the corpus

Structural-adjustment-era market moves followed by partial reversals; Ethiopia's Abiy reforms + Nigeria's Tinubu naira+subsidy package + Zimbabwean collapse all show up.

Post-communist transitions + defunct states

8 of 8 in the corpus

Soviet Union and Yugoslavia included as historical priors; Russia + Romania track post-1989 transition trajectories.

Drift on the four key axes (liberal-democracy panel)

Each chart isolates one axis so the directional pattern is unambiguous. Drawn only for the liberal-democracy panel because 74 lines on one axis chart would be unreadable.

Why this matters — the framework's working hypothesis

A widely-held intuition is that liberal democracies experience positional creep — the median voter, the managerial class, and the bureaucracy each have asymmetric incentives to expand state activity (more transfers buys votes, more regulation enlarges managerial scope, more tax follows the spending). The drift index turns that intuition into a measurable, falsifiable pattern: if the creep is real, most liberal democracies should show net-positive composite drift over multi-decade horizons. If the creep is not universal, we should see countries with sustained net-negative drift (Mulroney Canada, Greek post-2010 memoranda, Israeli 1985, post-1990 Sweden tax-reform-of-the-century, NZ Rogernomics). Both patterns appear above — neither view wins by inspection alone.

That next layer lives in the hypothesis library as pre-registered tests: the managerial-flywheel claim, the fiscal-rule dampening claim, and the initial-state reversion claim. Keeping them separate is deliberate: this page describes the coded policy trajectory, while the hypothesis pages say exactly what would count as support, partial support, or refutation.