3. Studying policy tools: Knowns and unknowns
Because of the recent moves towards the enhanced study of policy mixes
and policy design, the lacunas of the instrument literature today are
more pronounced than ever before. This new focus on policy instrument
mixes underlines the need to pay more attention to the actual way in
which policies achieve expected results as well as the nature of the
interactions of tools within mixes. More research is needed to order the
complex world of designing policy mixes and above all to disentangle how
different factors drive the designing of good or bad policy mixes.
In general, policy instruments have been the topic of continuous
research and analysis to understand the following, and some progress has
been made on most of these issues:
- Why and how policymakers choose, recurrently, particular instruments
with respect to others, and whether and how they change previous
choices (Salamon 2002; Hood 1983; Linder and Peters 1989, 1998 Capano
and Lippi 2017);
- Why and how governance modes change over time and instrument choices
with them (Le Galés 2011; Capano et al 2015);
- How policy actors aggregate around specific policy instruments to form
‘instrument constituencies’ promoting certain kinds of tools, often
regardless of the nature of the problem to which they might be applied
(Beland and Howlett 2016);
- How and why policymakers can utilize knowledge and power to design
policy mixes rather than simply reacting to the
political-administrative context and issues at stake (Howlett and
Rayner 2013, 2017; Schmidt and Sewerin 2018);
- What political and policy effects can be achieved by adopting specific
policy instruments (Bressers and Klok 1988; Campbell et al 2004; May
et al. 2005; Jordan and Matt 2014; Borras and Edquist, 2013; Edler et
al., 2016; Rogge and Reichardt, 2016);
- Whether and how policy instruments can be considered as institutions
and thus as bearer of social and political values, identities, and
worldviews which in turn affect support and conflict regarding their
choice (Lascoumes and Le Galés 2004; 2007).
- What are the basic kinds of tools and whether, for example,
distinctions such as those mooted between ‘procedural’ and
‘substantive’ tools or between ‘implementation’ and
‘non-implementation’ oriented tools serve a useful purpose (Howlett
2000)
- How well tools work alone and/or whether they work better, or worse,
in combination (Taeihagh et al. 2013).
Knowledge generated in this research has created the basis for an
improved understanding of the nature of policy instrument choice and
enhanced the notion that it is possible to design public policy in a
sophisticated way.
However, the pattern of research on policy instruments has developed in
a very un-coordinated way, and is uneven. Despite the richness of the
literature there are still many analytical “black holes”, theoretical
lacunas and an excess of descriptivism. This is necessary to address if
the policy instruments approach is to proceed towards an effective
process of scientific cumulation. In particular, there is a need to
deepen knowledge of many relevant dimensions of the policy instrument
approach in order to address unresolved questions such as why
policymakers choose some instruments over others, whether policy
instruments directly impact policy performance, how to study the
characteristics and the effects of policy mixes, and how policy
instruments truly work when delivering their outcomes. In answering
these questions, a clearer understanding of policy tools, mixes and
design is required. However, these are lacking at present.
Table 1 below outlines a list of 14 issues based on the most recent
reviews of the literature (Acciai and Capano 2018; Vargas and Restrepo
2019; Howlett 2019), and divides them into four clusters. As these four
clusters show, while much is known about policy tools, much remains to
be understood. These clusters are defined by the following : (1)
problems with understanding instrument and mix dynamics (2)
under-examined behavioural issues, (3) measurement and methodological
issues, and (4) a variety of issues related to policy implementation
affecting tool deployment and use.