Calibrations (substantial or procedural ones) – what they are and
how they are selected
Calibrations are those contextual actions and decisions through which
policymakers adjust the actual setting of policy instruments with
respect to the target of interest. We know these kind of calibrations
are the order of the day in policymaking, especially in the
implementation stage when policies need to be delivered in an effective
way.
So, calibrations are key actions such as increasing the number of
policemen if there is a risk of a riot, increasing the number of beds in
hospitals if there is an unexpected disease in the population, or
altering some rules of subsidy distributions against poverty when the
approved ones show inconsistency. Calibrations thus represent a huge set
of instrument-based decisions that can be done at the central level when
policy designers reconsider some aspects of the instrument-based setting
through which the adopted policy instruments have been implemented. On
the other hand, it can also be matter of action of the implementer and
of street-level bureaucracy.
All in all, there should potentially be a wealth of empirical evidence
about various kinds of calibrations, which involve routine adjustments
of ongoing policies, if it would be used as an analytical lens in the
huge amount of research done on policymaking; this has not yet to be
done. This review would be important in order to understand what kinds
of regularity exists when policymakers calibrate policies.