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Governance modes, policy regimes and operational plans: A multi-level nested model of policy instrument choice and policy design

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Abstract

Policy goals and means exist at different levels of abstraction and application and policies can be seen to be comprised of a number of components or elements, not all of which are as amenable to (re)design as others. Defining and thinking about polices and policy-making in this way is very useful because it highlights how policy design is all about the effort to match goals and instruments both within and across categories. That is, successful policy design requires (1) that policy aims, objectives, and targets be coherent; (2) that implementation preferences, policy tools and tool calibrations should also be consistent; and (3) that policy aims and implementation preferences; policy objectives, and policy tools; and policy targets and tool calibrations, should also be congruent and convergent. Policy instrument choices can thus be seen to result from a nested or embedded relationship within a larger framework of established governance modes and policy regime logics. In this contextual model, the range of choices left at the level of concrete targeted policy instrument calibrations—the typical subject of policy tool analysis—is restricted by the kinds of decisions made about policy objectives and the appropriate tools to attain them, and both of these, in turn, by the kind of choices made at the highest level setting out general policy aims and implementation preferences.

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Notes

  1. “Market failures” are specific instances where markets cannot be expected to provide an efficient or optimum level of production of goods and services desired in society. Based on the work of Alfred Pigou, a British economist writing during and after WWI on the “economics of imperfect competition” (or what has come to be known as the “economics of welfare”or “welfare economics” after the title of one of Pigou’s books (Pigou 1932; Kleiman and Teles 2006; Bator 1958), several discrete instances of such failures have been uncovered by generations of economists. These are well-known and based on the recognition that the market’s need for profit in order to engage in any productive activity precludes the delivery of any good or service for which accurate prices cannot be charged.

  2. “Governance failures” stem from the problems associated with collective action identified by the American political scientist Mancur Olson (1965). Activities such as interest group formation and operation, legislative and administrative behaviour, and other policy relevant political action suffer from difficulties associated with individual interests diverging from collective ones, contributing to problems such as implementation failures, bureaucratic pathologies, underrepresentation of social groups and the like. These are well known and affect the ability of policy-makers to receive or correctly process information on social interests and desires (Le Grand 1991; Weimer and Vining 2004).

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    Michael Howlett

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Howlett, M. Governance modes, policy regimes and operational plans: A multi-level nested model of policy instrument choice and policy design. Policy Sci 42, 73–89 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-009-9079-1

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