Defining and measuring the types of tools found in policy mixes
The recent literature on the subject has shown some significant efforts in measuring policy mixes (which can be considered a success). Thus we can measure the “density” (intended as the number of policy instruments enacted in a policy mix) and the “intensity” (intended as the grade of significance/stringency assigned to the adopted policy instruments) of policy mixes. The research on policy intensity has been particularly well-developed; starting from the use of expert panels or media coverage (cite), there has now been a convergence in measuring policy intensity in terms of focusing on “objectives”, “settings” and “calibrations” (Knill et al. 2012), and thus assessing the amount of resources, effort and activities invested in the adopted instruments (Schaffrin, Sewerin and Seubert 2015). This focus on intensity has allowed measuring the development of policy dynamics in terms of balance among different policy instruments as well as change in intensity (Schimdt and Sewerin 2018).
Other dimensions of policy mixes that can be measured are related to the way their components (goals, instruments, context) relate to each other; these include the grade of consistency, coherence and congruency of mixes (Howlett and Rayner 2017; Rogge Kern and Howlett 2017). However, empirical research has not yet sufficiently developed with regard to measuring these characteristics. This can be due also to the fact that there is still a certain disagreement about the definition of these concepts especially regarding the semantical difference between consistency and coherence (Rogge & Reichardt 2016). At the same time, more empirical research on the effects of the level of coherence, consistency and congruency of the implementation on the output, and the outcomes of the policy design would be quite welcome; there is a need to understand whether and how the interaction between goals and instruments, old instruments and newly adopted instruments, and different policy mixes functioning in different policy sectors empirical research. For this, scholars should try to be less speculative on the theoretical definitions of terms and find a functional agreement to develop more empirical research.