Procedural tools and how they relate to mixes
Policies have a substantive element that comprises of the technical arrangements of alternatives that can potentially resolve the policy problem at hand – and a procedural component that entails all the processes and activities necessary to coordinate the activities of policy actors in charge of formulating, making decisions and administering the alternatives (Howlett 2011).
That is, policy actors are arrayed in various kinds of policy communities, and just as they can alter or affect the actions of citizens in the productive realm, so too can they affect and alter aspects of policy-making behaviour (Knoke 1987; 1991; 1993). Procedural implementation tools are an important part of government activities aimed at altering policy interaction within policy sub-systems (Klijn et al. 1995). An essential component of modern governance, the range of procedural policy instruments comprises at least half the toolbox from which governments select specific tools expected to resolve policy problems.
These two aspects of policy designing, however, have not received equal treatment from students of the subject. Procedurally oriented implementation tools have received much less attention than substantive ones, even though several procedural techniques, such as the use of specialized investigatory commissions and government reorganizations, are quite old and well-used and have been the objects of study in fields such as public administration, public management and organizational behaviour (Schneider and Sidney 2009).