Holy Grail or inflated expectations? The success and failure of integrated policy strategies

Abstract

Governments and international organizations increasingly pursue the development of integrated policy strategies to govern persistent societal problems that crosscut the boundaries of traditional jurisdictions. In spite of the rising popularity of such integrated strategies, little is known about their effects. Although it is generally assumed that integrated strategies result in better outcomes, the evidence base to support this claim is sparse. This is not to say that no attempts to study the relationship between integrated strategies and policy outcomes have been undertaken at all; this paper presents a research synthesis of the fragmented evidence base. Eligible studies are interpreted and discussed by using a heuristic that distinguishes between programmatic and political success and failure. Apart from synthesizing the impacts that integrated strategies have had, the paper reflects on associated explanatory conditions and methodological approaches that have been used. The review almost exclusively finds reports of failure and constraining conditions. At the same time, methodological approaches are found to be largely unconvincing and considerable research gaps remain. The paper, therefore, ends with a nuanced answer to the question of whether integrated strategies are worth pursuing and sets out various avenues for further research. ARTICLE HISTORY

Images of Coordination: How Implementing Organizations Perceive Coordination Arrangements

“…Indeed, research shows that the performance of such HPPs to date is largely failing (see the review by Candel ). At best, implementation is variable across targeted sectors, and there might be symbolic political gains (Candel ; Candel and Biesbroek ; Tosun and Lang ).…”

Avoidance of conflicts and trade‐offs: A challenge for the policy integration of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

“…This may overcome an immediate conflict but avoids the necessary deliberation over difficult conflicts (Nordbeck & Steurer, ). Although acknowledging that policy coordination is no panacea and that reaching transformational consensus is difficult (Candel, ), no study has pointed out that the aggregation rules, requiring unanimity in decision making and the balancing of interests, are crucial in the formation of conflict avoidance.…”

“…When 193 member nations signed up to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, it was the first time the policy community had seen such a significant opportunity for mainstream sustainability ideas across policy sectors. The academic community proactively concentrated its efforts on raising critical research questions across the goals (Oldekop et al, ), setting normative directions for effective implementation (Biermann, Kanie, & Kim, ; Boas, Biermann, & Kanie, ; Stafford‐Smith et al, ), and consolidating decades of research on policy coordination and integration (Candel, ; Cejudo & Michel, ; Peters, ; Tosun & Lang, ).…”

From environmental policy concepts to practicable tools: Knowledge creation and delegation in multilevel systems

“…In closing, we would like to state our awareness that the above assessment regarding the ‘success’ of defining EPI deviates from the dominant conclusions in the literature, which tend to be more negative. Referring to Candel (), however, we believe that it is important to have a realistic sense of what is attainable with regard to EPI. Considering the ambiguity of the concept and the volatility in public and political attention paid to it at the various levels of government, we believe that progress has indeed been made concerning the implementation of EPI, precisely because of the institutional dynamics that emerge from interrelated problem‐solving and problem‐generating processes, and how the various institutions are involved in defining the concept of EPI.…”

“…Many policy issues are 'boundary spanning' and require the coordination and integration of sectoral policies in order to be solved (e.g., Dommett and Flinders 2015;Egeberg and Trondal 2016;Candel 2017;Tosun and Lang 2017;Trein et al 2018). For instance, to promote gender equality, national and international public authorities have developed 'gender mainstreaming' in order to preside over several policy sectors (see, e.g., Pollack and Hafner-Burton 2010).…”