Instruments for Policy Integration: How Policy Mixes Work Together

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 215824402110321
Author(s):  
Guillermo M. Cejudo ◽  
Cynthia L. Michel
Keyword(s):  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Policy Tools ◽  
Policy Integration ◽  
Policy Mix ◽  
Specific Policy ◽  
Complex Problems ◽  
Policy Mixes ◽  
Integrated Logic ◽  
Over Time

To effectively address complex problems, different policy instruments must be integrated into policy mixes. A crucial task for the policymaker is to identify the set of instruments to be deployed and to integrate them into a policy mix. However, policy instruments not only need to be coherent in their design; their implementation also requires instruments that create interdependence and preserve the integrated logic of the policy mix over time. In this paper we identify the instruments that make integration work. We argue that for policy mixes to solve complex problems, instruments that secure the continued interaction of its components are needed. We show that three instruments serve this purpose: a policy frame, authority, and information. We use three cases where governments have attempted to solve complex problems through policy integration to illustrate our argument. With this paper, we advance our understanding of how integration works and, by doing so, we inform decision-makers about the specific policy tools necessary to achieve it.

scholarly journals Do policy instruments matter? Governments’ choice of policy mix and higher education performance in Western Europe

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giliberto Capano ◽  
Andrea Pritoni ◽  
Giulia Vicentini
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Large Data ◽  
Policy Mix ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Policy Mixes ◽  
Education Performance

AbstractGovernments pursue their goals by adopting various mixes of policy instruments. This article proposes a specific operationalisation of these mixes and applies it to the analysis of reforms that many Western European governments have pursued, as they have adopted a similar policy design in their higher education systems (HESs) over the last 20 years. In fact, although these policies have similar templates, performance indicators exhibit remarkable variation between countries. Thus, by applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis to a large data set containing all changes in policy instruments undertaken in the last 20 years in 12 HESs in Western Europe, this article explores the possibility that differences in performance across national HESs could be associated – ceteris paribus – with different policy mixes. This article finds not only that the common template has been applied through very different national policy mixes but also that only a few instruments are regularly linked to good teaching performance, regardless of the other components of the actual policy mix.

scholarly journals Patching vs Packaging in Policy Formulation: Assessing Policy Portfolio Design

2013 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Howlett ◽  
Jeremy Rayner
Keyword(s):  
Policy Design ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Policy Tools ◽  
Design Work ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Policy Mixes ◽  
Portfolio Design ◽  
Over Time

Thinking about policy mixes is at the forefront of current research work in the policy sciences and raises many significant questions with respect to policy tools and instruments, processes of policy formulation, and the evolution of tool choices over time. Not least among these is how to assess the potential for multiple policy tools to achieve policy goals in an efficient and effective way. Previous conceptual work on policy mixes has highlighted evaluative criteria such as "consistency" (the ability of multiple policy tools to reinforce rather than undermine each other in the pursuit of individual policy goals), "coherence" (or the ability of multiple policy goals to co-exist with each other in a logical fashion), and "congruence" (or the ability of multiple goals and instruments to work together in a uni-directional or mutually supportive fashion) as important design principles and measures of optimality in policy mixes. And previous empirical work on the evolution of existing policy mixes has highlighted how these three criteria are often lacking in mixes which have evolved over time as well as those which have otherwise been consciously designed. This article revisits this early design work in order to more clearly assess the reasons why many existing policy mixes are sub-optimal and the consequences this has for thinking about policy formulation processes and the practices of policy design.

scholarly journals The Knowns and Unknowns of Policy Instrument Analysis: Policy Tools and the Current Research Agenda on Policy Mixes

SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401990056 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giliberto Capano ◽  
Michael Howlett
Keyword(s):  
Policy Design ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Policy Tools ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Instrument Analysis ◽  
Relevant Topic ◽  
Current Article ◽  
Policy Mixes ◽  
Policy Fields

Policies are made and pursue their goals through policy instruments. Furthermore, policy instruments have become a relevant topic in many policy fields due to their theoretical and empirical relevance. The study of this field dates back to Lowi and others who developed many typologies and theories in classic works by authors such as Hood, Salamon, Linder and Peters, Peters and van Nispen, Schneider and Ingram, Lascomes and Le Galès, among others. This is important work that is linked closely to current research on policy design but, despite much effort, many fundamental issues remain unknown or understudied with respect to the topic. It is time to take inventory of the knowns and unknowns about policy tools. The current article examines four clusters of basic issues in the field which require further research.

Protecting Students' Civil Rights: The Federal Role in School Discipline

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Cardichon ◽  
Linda Darling-Hammond
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
School Discipline ◽  
Educational Equity ◽  
Policy Tools ◽  
Educational Inequalities ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Policies And Practices

This article takes a careful look at political and policy tools that presidential administrations have at their disposal for ameliorating educational inequalities. These tools, the authors suggest, include issuing federal guidance that informs and supports states and districts as they work to implement policies and practices that comply with federal law. However, as the authors point out, the extent to which administrations have chosen to leverage these opportunities to advance educational equity has varied over time.

Reviewing the role of habitat banking and tradable development rights in the conservation policy mix

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 294-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
RUI SANTOS ◽  
CHRISTOPH SCHRÖTER-SCHLAACK ◽  
PAULA ANTUNES ◽  
IRENE RING ◽  
PEDRO CLEMENTE
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Conservation Policy ◽  
Time Lags ◽  
Policy Mix ◽  
Biodiversity Offsets ◽  
Development Rights

SUMMARYHabitat banking and tradable development rights (TDR) have gained considerable currency as a way of achieving ‘no net loss’ of biodiversity and of reconciling nature conservation with economic development goals. This paper reviews the use of these instruments for biodiversity conservation and assesses their roles in the policy mix. The two instruments are compared in terms of effectiveness, cost effectiveness, social impact, institutional context and legal requirements. The role in the policy mix is discussed highlighting sequential relationships, as well as complementarities or synergies, redundancy and conflicts with other instruments, such as biodiversity offsets and land-use zoning.Habitat banking and TDR have the potential to contribute to biodiversity conservation objectives and attain cost-effective solutions with positive social impacts on local communities and landowners. They can also help to create a new mind-set more favourable to public-private cooperation in biodiversity conservation. At the same time, these policy instruments face a number of theoretical and implementation challenges, such as additionality and equivalence of offsets, endurance of land-use planning regulations, monitoring of offset performance, or time lags between restoration and resulting conservation benefits.A clear, enforceable regulatory approach is a prerequisite for the success of habitat banking and TDR. In return, these schemes provide powerful incentives for compliance with regulatory norms and ensure a more equitable allocation of the benefits and costs of land-use controls and conservation. Environmentally harmful subsidies in other policy sectors as well as alternative offset options, however, reduce the attractiveness and effectiveness of these instruments. Thus, the overall performance of habitat banking and TDR hinges on how they are integrated into the biodiversity conservation policy mix and fine-tuned with other sectoral policies.

scholarly journals Policy integration, problem-solving, and the coronavirus disease crisis: lessons for policy design

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martino Maggetti ◽  
Philipp Trein
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Policy Integration ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
The World ◽  
Integration Problem ◽  
The One ◽  
Integrated Response ◽  
Crisis Responses

Abstract The coronavirus disease pandemic has exposed differences in the capacity of governments around the world to integrate and coordinate different policy instruments into a coherent response. In this article, we conceptualize and empirically examine policy integration in responses to the coronavirus disease crisis in 35 countries. We then discuss how the interplay between restrictions, health protection, and economic policy has been articulated between, on the one hand, a policy design based on the complementarity of pro-public health and pro-economy measures, implying an integrated response, and, on the other, a policy design based on the perception of an inherent trade-off between the two. Finally, we discuss three implications from our analysis of policy integration against the coronavirus disease crisis for the post-COVID state: (a) the normalization and adaptation of integrated crisis responses; (b) the possible acceleration and “catching up” of problem-solving capacity as governments may use the crisis as an instance to put into place new social policies; and (c) policy integration as an accelerator of policy complexity and resistance against technocracy in the post-COVID state.

scholarly journals The Choice of Innovation Policy Instruments

2019 ◽  
pp. 212-228
Author(s):  
Susana Borrás ◽  
Charles Edquist
Keyword(s):  
Innovation Policy ◽  
Innovation System ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Instrument Choice ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Policy Mixes

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the different types of instruments of innovation policy, to examine how governments and public agencies in different countries and different times have used these instruments differently, to explore the political nature of instrument choice and design (and associated issues), and to elaborate a set of criteria for the selection and design of the instruments in relation to the formulation of holistic innovation policy. The chapter argues that innovation policy instruments must be designed and combined into mixes that address the problems of the innovation system. These mixes are often called ‘policy mixes’, though we prefer the term ‘instrument mix’. The wide combination of instruments into such mixes is what makes innovation policy ‘holistic’.

Thinking Systemically About Security and Resilience in an Era of Cybered Conflict

2019 ◽  
pp. 44-59
Author(s):  
Peter Dombrowski ◽  
Chris C. Demchak
Keyword(s):  
International System ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Systemic Approach ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace And War ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Civil Societies

The international system now depends on cyberspace, a global ‘substrate' of massive, complex, insecurely designed networks providing systemic advantages to masses of predators and adversaries. States today face an unprecedented spectrum of ‘cybered conflict' between peace and war with growing existential implications. Their piecemeal searches for defensible jurisdictions are creating a rising Cyber Westphalian world crisscrossed with gateways, holes, national cyber forces, and often partial, uncoordinated, or vague strategies. Over time, the world will have robust, midlevel, and poor cyber powers, with the first tier coercing the others and dominating the rules of exchange. Democratic civil societies are not guaranteed to be robust. For acceptable future societal well-being in a deceptive and opaque cybered world, decision-makers need a systemic approach based on the logic of complex socio-technical-economic systems (STES) to create the systemic resilience and disruption capacities across shareable (across allies/sectors) secure architectures essential to becoming a robust cyber power, which is the focus of this chapter.

Analysis and Decision

2019 ◽  
pp. 161-186
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Probabilistic Reasoning ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Over Time

This chapter explains how decision makers can incorporate assessments of uncertainty into high-stakes foreign policy choices. It begins by describing a simple analytic tool called break-even analysis, with which leaders can use explicit probability assessments as a point of leverage for determining whether or not a risky decision is worthwhile. The chapter then explains how transparent probabilistic reasoning is especially important for assessing strategic progress. In some cases, it can actually be impossible to make rigorous judgments about the extent to which foreign policies are making acceptable progress without assessing subjective probabilities in detail. This argument departs from a large body of existing scholarship on learning in international politics that assumes leaders can use a straightforward logic of trial and error to determine how they should update their strategic perceptions over time. The chapter provides examples of these dynamics drawn from the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

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