Abstract
Policy instruments are a fundamental component of public policies. Policy instruments are often a result of mediation within the policy design process, whenever decision makers reshape existing instruments without introducing any real innovation. This results in imitation, layering and ambiguity in tool choice selection, and raises the theoretical problem of the logic according to which decision makers choose certain specific policy instruments rather than others. Decision makers may have different reasons for choosing certain specific instruments, although these reasons should be connected to the two main purposes of decision-making, that is, the search for effectiveness and the construction of a shared sense, a common acceptance. Thus, the choice of instruments is a question of potentially conflicting drivers that decision makers have to cope with within a specific decisional situation, when asked to solve those problems that have arisen. This paper examines this question and offers an analytical framework based on the two main factors in terms of which the selection of instruments is channelled and assessed: legitimacy and instrumentality. The boundaries created by how decision makers perceive these two dimensions mean that only four selection patterns can be chosen by decision makers: hybridization, stratification, contamination or routinization.
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Notes
Our distinction between specialized and generic instruments echoes the more traditional one between substitutable and non-substitutable policy instruments (Trebilcock and Hartle 1982; Doern and Phidd 1988; Howlett 2004; Landry and Varone 2005). We try to overcome the limits of this literature from two points of view. Firstly, by assuming the relevance of decision makers’ perceptions we underline how the intrinsic attributes of a policy instrument (technical or in terms of political economy) are not objective, but are based on subjective assessment. Secondly, the use of the labels “specialized” and “generic” offers a more precise picture of the real features that decision makers attribute to the instruments. In fact, the dichotomy substitutable/non-substitutable is based on a kind of technical assessment (while a non-substitutable instrument is considered to be the only means by which to achieve a given goal, a substitutable instrument can be replaced by others in order to reach a pursued goal) in terms of effectiveness. Nevertheless, our emphasis on decision makers’ perceptions and the adoption of a second driver (legitimacy), means not only that the choice of instruments cannot involve a technical evaluation alone, but also that a non-substitutable instrument may not be chosen, notwithstanding the perception of its technical superiority, because decision makers that it is not sufficiently well-accepted in a specific context: in this latter case, the choice of a “generic” instrument is considered the best in terms of the balance between effectiveness-seeking and sense-seeking.
Of course, we use the term “contamination” not in the medical sense but in that of Greek and Latin manuscript tradition. In this sense, contamination is a technique of writing whereby a single manuscript contains readings originating from different sources or different traditions. The final result may be highly innovative rather than a simple collage.
We use the term “hybridization” in the biological sense, that is, in the sense of the interbreeding of individuals from genetically distinct populations. This concept is also used in organizational theory (Minkoff 2002; Hargrave and Van de Ven 2006) and in public administration studies (Christensen and Laegreid 2001). Here, generally speaking, hybridization means the combination of different institutional logics. In this sense, the term is more specific than the generic use of hybrid type seen in policy instrument literature, where it is simply synonymous with “mix” (see: Gunningham and Grabosky 1998; Jordan et al. 2005).
Routinization, in representing the maintenance of the status quo, could be considered dependent on the strength of the contextual factor more than on a choice made due to the freedom of choice, albeit limited, of decision makers. For example, it could assumed that in the presence of a policy community (Heclo and Wildawsky 1981), or a highly politicized issue—which according to the Advocacy Coalition Framework is the basis for the maintenance of the status quo (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993)—decision makers would be forced to opt for routinization. However, the rationale of our framework would suggest that decision makers:
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are not necessarily capable/obliged of interpreting the situation in a path-dependent way, and thus, they could choose a different interpretation of the situation and opt for one of the other three patterns of choice;
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should they opt for routinization, this is due to their perception of conditions, whereby legitimation is perceived to be only internal (at the policy community or policy sub-system level), and the focus on specialization is based on the fact that the previously adopted policy tools are perceived to be confirmed in their specialized use and thus cannot be changed.
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Capano, G., Lippi, A. How policy instruments are chosen: patterns of decision makers’ choices. Policy Sci 50, 269–293 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-016-9267-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-016-9267-8