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A recent resurgence of interest in policy design has fostered renewed efforts to better understand how specific combinations of policy tools arise and shape policy outcomes. However, to date, these efforts have been stymied by under-theorization of the dif- ferent purposes to which tools are directed in policy mixes and a corresponding failure to acknowledge both these in conceptual work on the subject and in policy practice. Existing frameworks do not adequately recognize the complexity of contemporary policy tool mixes, especially their hybrid and multilayered features, and how procedural and substantial tools operate and interact together in priority and supportive roles. To close this gap, we propose a revised tool framework that distinguishes between first and second-order aspects of instruments used in policy mixes and highlights the particular salience of procedural tools within them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the UN, in 2015, established a clear global mandate for greater integrated policymaking, but there has been little consensus on how to achieve them. The COVID-19 pandemic amplified the role of policy capacity in mounting this kind of integrated policy response; however, the relationship between pre- and post-pandemic SDG efforts remains largely unexplored. In this article, we seek to address this gap through a conceptual analysis of policy integration and the capacities necessary for its application to the current SDG situation. Building on the literature on policy design, we define policy integration as the process of effectively reconciling policy goals and policy instruments and we offer a typology of policy integration efforts based on the degree of goal and instrument consistency including: policy harmonization, mainstreaming, coordination, and institutionalization. These forms of policy integration dictate the types of strategies that governments need to adopt in order to arrive at a more coherent policy mix. Following the dimensions of policy capacity by Wu et al. (2015), policy capacities are identified that are critical to ensuring successful integration. This information, thus, contributes to both academic- and policy-related debates on policy integration, by advancing conceptual clarity on the different, and sometimes, diverging concepts used in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the policy sciences exhibited a paradoxical relationship to public behavior: arguing in theory that it was rational in a utilitarian sense and could be modelled as such while at the same time recognizing its irrational nature in practice without attempting to reconcile this contradiction. A recent behavioral turn among policy scholars has broken the discursive hegemony of traditional hedonic compliance-deterrence models, however, placing informal institutions such as norms, irrationalities and collective action at the center of the policy research agenda. To date there has been little theorizing of the implications of this turn for the policy-making nature of the state, as well as its extent and nature. Addressing these gaps we conduct a bibliometric review, which finds that the number of behaviorally-oriented articles on policy instruments have been increasing in number and relevance. This provides evidence of a behavioral turn in policy studies as well as documenting the emergence of a behavioral state, that is one which is more inclined to reconcile policy-making theory and practice by embracing the irrationalities of policy actors, through the creation of nudge and behavioral units across a wide range of domains, a shift in emphasis from the supply of policy to the demands of policy targets. However, the study shows the impact of this turn is geographically and sectorally uneven and will become more generalized in the future only if more states embrace this 'turn'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evolutionary governance theory (EGT) provides a basis for holistically analyzing the shifting contexts and dynamics of poli‐ cymaking in settings with functional differentiation and complex subsystems. Policy assemblages, as mixes of policy tools and goals, are an appropriate unit of analysis for EGT because they embody the theory’s emphasis on co‐evolving elements within policy systems. In rational practice, policymakers design policies within assemblages by establishing objectives, col‐ lecting information, comparing options, strategizing implementation, and selecting instruments. However, as EGT implies, this logical progression does not always materialize so tidily—some policies emerge from carefully considered blueprints while others evolve from muddled processes, laissez faire happenstance, or happy accident. Products of the latter often include loosely steered, unmoored, and ‘non‐designed’ path dependencies that confound linear logic and are understud‐ ied in the policy literature. There exists the need for a more intricate analytical vocabulary to describe this underexplored ‘chaotic’ end of the policy design spectrum, as conjuring images of ‘muddles’ or ‘messes’ has exhausted its usefulness. This article introduces a novel metaphor for non‐design—the bird nest—to bring studies of policy design and non‐design into lexical harmony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although understanding initial responses to a crisis such as COVID-19 is important, existing research on the topic has not been systematically comparative. This study uses topic modeling to inductively analyze over 13,000 COVID-19 policies worldwide. This technique enables the COVID-19 policy mixes to be characterized and their cross-country variation to be compared. Significant variation was found in the intensity, density, and balance of policy mixes adopted across countries, over time, and by level of government. This study advances research on policy responses to the pandemic, specifically, and the operationalization of policy mixes, more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy design undertakes to develop effective policies and hence must understand whether and how effective policies can be formulated and implemented. However, very often policy design has failed to focus on the causal chain that represents the actual driver of policy effects and thus misconstrues the potential effectiveness of a policy design. A mechanistic perspective is extremely helpful for conceptualising and pinpointing such causal chains, as it focuses on the real processes that must be activated by policy-makers in implementing policy designs. This article identifies the main steps to be taken when adopting such a mechanistic approach to policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of policy design have grappled with such issues as policy tool use, overcoming historical policy legacies, the nature of policy mixes and issues around policy formulation and the nature of ‘design’ and ‘designing’ in policy-making. These studies have begun to establish insights into what makes a policy design ‘effective’ or likely to succeed in being adopted or implemented or both. This paper draws lessons from both the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ design work to establish several basic criteria for effective design and designing. As the review of the literature shows, the kinds of lessons that can be drawn from these studies fall into two categories: those dealing with matching design activity to the context of policy-making and those which focus on the character of the tools deployed in a design. The paper sets out both these elements and shows how they can be combined to generate lessons, insights and practices for both policy scholars and practitioners alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy analysis has always been interested in better understanding and improving the sets of policy tools adopted by governments to correct policy problems. Comparative policy studies have contributed much towards clarifying the nature of the processes of policy analysis and policy formulation which result in the construction of these policy portfolios. Past studies have helped clarify the role of historical processes, policy capacities and design intentions in affecting policy formulation processes - from “design” to “non-design” ones - and more recently have begun to articulate basic principles for better policy designs. Effectiveness in this work has been evaluated at three levels of consideration: that of the analysis of effective formulation environments or spaces that are conducive to the design of effective policies; through studies of how effective policy tool portfolios or mixes can be constructed to effectively address complex policy goals; and through a more specific and traditional focus upon what constitutes the effectiveness of particular types of policy tools within a mix. Each of these contributions is examined in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the rise of design thinking and its problematics in the social policy sphere. In particular, it argues that studies of social policy design, like all design work in policymaking, must differentiate more carefully between technical and political considerations in public policymaking and examine the implications each process has for the content of social policy design, its implementation, and its prospects of success or failure. The article develops a model of social policy formulation spaces based on the extent to which policies are intended to address technical or political problems and a government's capacity to engage in policy analysis and alternative assessment. This model is applied in the articles in this special issue to help understand the patterns of policy content and outcome success and failure found in this sector across multiple jurisdictions and issue areas. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policies increasingly come in complex packages and understanding the nature of design criteria for such portfolios is increasingly important. However, existing studies of policy mixes fail to carefully define the dependent variable of the inquiry. As a result, theorization of policy design has lagged, the cumulative impact of empirical studies has not been great and understanding of the phenomena, despite many observations of its significance in policy studies, has not improved significantly over the past three decades. This paper aims to revitalize this important aspect of policy design work and policy studies by distinguishing between mix types and their impact on policy formulation. It defines key types and subtypes of mixes based on the complexity of design variables such as the number of goals, the number of policies and the number of levels of government and sectors involved in the design of a policy bundle. The taxonomy is then used to assess the validity and applicability of oft-cited but under-examined portfolio design principles and precepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy and program design is a major theme of contemporary policy research, aimed at improving the understanding of how the processes, methods and tools of policy-making are employed to better formulate effective policies and programs, and to understand the reasons why such designs are not forthcoming. However while many efforts have been made to evaluate policy design, less work has focused on program designs. This article sets out to fill this gap in knowledge of design practices in policy-making. It outlines the nature of the study of policy design with a particular focus on the nature of programs and the lessons derived from empirical experience regarding the conditions that enhance program effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy design is an area of study in the field of public policy with a curious intellectual history. It engendered a large literature in the 1980s and 1990s oriented to understanding design as both a process and an outcome with prominent figures in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia such as Lester Salamon, Patricia Ingraham, Malcolm Goggin, John Dryzek, Hans Bressers, Helen Ingram and Anne Schneider, G. B. Doern, Stephen Linder and B. Guy Peters, Renate Mayntz, Christopher Hood, Eugene Bardach, Evert Vedung, Peter May, Frans van Nispen, and Michael Trebilock writing extensively on policy formulation, policy instrument choice, and the idea of designing policy outcomes. After the early 1990s, however, this literature tailed off, and although some writings on policy design have continued to flourish in specific fields such as economics and environmental studies, in the fields of public administration and public policy, the idea of “design” was largely replaced by the study of institutional forms and decentralized governance arrangements. This article traces this decline to two related hypotheses about the changing nature of society and policy responses—the “government to governance” and “globalization” narratives—which it is argued crowded out more nuanced analyses of state options in the policy-making process in favor of decentralized market and “third” or “fourth” sector collaborative network mechanisms. Importantly, these latter designs are often seen as inevitable and “natural,” obviating the need for reflective studies of design and metadesign processes and outcomes. We argue that the denouement of design research has, in fact, hurt the scholarship on governance and institutions and call for a renewal of the notion of policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]