Links of tools choices to ideational paradigms and paradigm
changes
Policy paradigms, belief systems, and ideas matter when policy
instruments are also at stake in policy change (Hogan and Howlett 2015)
and their impacts on policy tools little known. Such paradigms provide
general guidance to policymakers because their normative and cognitive
dimensions structure the goals they pursue. But they also affect
considerations of the appropriate tools for achieving those goals. The
ideational turn in political science and public policy has generated
relevant attention on how paradigms, beliefs and ideas can drive the
choice of policy instruments.
However, the results are quite ambiguous and not definitive. Surely the
concept of paradigm is useful to analyse policymaking from a macro-meso
perspective and thus to outline general trends. In fact, when
policymaking is analysed from a micro-perspective, different ideas,
frames, and belief systems are usually competing and confronting each
other in relation to the instrument choices. In addition, this variety
of ideational drivers can be one of the causes of initiating or the
institutionalization of policy mixes. For example, over time new
paradigms/ideas/frames can and do emerge, but the older ones are not
dissolved (Lieberman 2002; Oliver and Pemberton 2004). This can lead to
obvious conflicts and confrontations affecting tool choices if different
instruments are pursued in each approach. Thus, existing policy mixes
can be generated by the layering of different paradigms/frames over time
or by an agreement between different actors holding different cognitive
and normative beliefs with respect to policy problems and the
instruments chosen to deal with them.
All in all, we lack understanding of the real role of paradigms, frames,
ideas, and beliefs when policy instruments are at stake; this can be
considered disappointing if we recall the relevance of the “ideational
turn” in public policy.