2. The Emergence and Consolidation of Policy Instrument Research
There are many ways to study public policy which, given its processual nature has always involved consideration of policy dynamics and change. This has most commonly been approached through an ‘input’ lens, in which the actors and their interactions in the policy process have always been at the core of studies in the discipline (Araral et al. 2013; Capano 2020). The most commonly adopted theoretical frameworks—from the advocacy coalition framework to the punctuated equilibrium theory, from the multiple stream approach to the narrative policy framework (Weible and Sabatier 2017)— all examine the dynamics of actors in attempting to make sense of policymaking.
However, there has been a parallel stream in policy studies that has been more focused on the examination of the outputs of policy-making, analysing in detail the content of the adopted decisions (Salamon 2002). These are conceptualized in terms of policy instruments with scholars working backwards from outputs to inputs in assessing policy-making not as an open-ended struggle between ideas or interests but rather as a process of choosing or selecting tools to address policy goals. This stream has its roots in the work of authors such as Salamon and Vedung (Vedung 1998; Eliadis et al. 2005; Bendor et al.2009; Sidney 2007; Radaelli and Dunlop 2013; Howlett 2014; Howlett et al. 2014), although Theodor Lowi’s theoretical work (1972; 1985) can be considered the precursor to these works given his analytical focus on the content of governmental decisions and their capacity to address policy targets’ behaviour in some fashion.
This field has recently added an additional degree of complexity as there is now a shared scholarly view that the actual sets of adopted policy instruments, in every policy field, have a mixed nature and feature different patterns and trajectories of change over time (Gunningham and Sinclair 1999; Bressers and O’Toole 2005; Howlett 2005; Del Río, 2010; Grabosky, 1995; Justen et al, 2013b; Leplay and Thoyer, 2011). The intrinsic and inescapable mixed composition of adopted policy solutions makes the study of public policy instruments based on examinations of single tools particularly problematic and urges a reconsideration of the policy instrument approach, clarifying its actual state and possible solutions to its shortcomings.
These mixes “feature the use of combinations of different kinds of policy tools (market-based, hierarchical, network and others) whose exact configuration changes from location to location” (Rayner et al 2017, 473). Such mixes are complex, given the nature of the tools involved and how they relate to eachother. These includeinteractive effects among policy tools (Boonekamp, 2006; Justen et al., 2013a, 2013b; Yi and Feiock, 2012), counterproductive effects among policy instruments, and synergies (Lecuyer and Bibas, 2012; Philibert, 2011). Tools in an instrument mix, for example, can be considered consistent when they work together to support a policy strategy (Kern and Howlett 2009; Rogge and Reichardt 2016).
There is a wide consensus in policy design literature, however, that not all tools are inherently complementary (Boonekamp, 2006; Del Río, Calvo Silvosa, and Iglesias Gómez, 2011; Grabosky, 1995; Gunningham et al., 1998; Gunningham and Sinclair, 1999; Howlett 2017; Tinbergen, 1952) and that some generate counterproductive responses to policy targets (Schneider and Ingram, 1990, 2005). Counterproductive effects may be manifest when command and control regulation is used alongside voluntary compliance (Grabosky 1995). Complementary effects may be recorded when command and control regulation minimizing undesirable modes of behaviour are employed alongside financial incentives to promote more desirable ones (Hou and Brewer 2010). However they can also be neutral, conflicting, or overlapping in the case of renewable energy and building energy efficiency (Del Rio 2010; Rosenow et al. 2016). Further, some combinations of tools may be superior in reinforcing or supplementing an arrangement (Hou and Brewer, 2010), while others may unnecessarily duplicate in one context but advantageous in another (Braathen, 2007; Braathen and Croci, 2005). A key principle of current policy design thinking, therefore, is to maximize supplementary effects while mixes are developed (Daugbjerg, 2009).
But knowledge is limited with respect to how such policy mixes are designed. Obviously there are many studies that try to conceptually grasp how policy instruments are chosen by policymakers, but there is no real systematic analysis about how designs develops over time. There are some theoretical and empirical studies that focus on the dimensions of policy design whereas the political capacity/will of governments and their technical capacities are taken into consideration to align why and how policy mixes are designed to produce good policy design, that is, policy mixes that are more or less coherent, consistent and congruent (Howlett et al 2015; Howlett and Mukherjee 2018; Capano 2018). These studies, however, should be considered only the beginning of a potentially relevant research stream.