Policy Coordination and Integration: A Research Agenda

• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Philipp Trein,Robbert Biesbroek,Thomas Bolognesi,Guillermo M. Cejudo,Robert Duffy,Thurid Hustedt,Iris Meyer
• Date: 01 September 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13180

Policy Coordination and Integration: A Research Agenda 973

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 81, Iss. 5, pp. 973–977. © 2020 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13180.

Thomas Bolognesi is senior researcher

at the University of Geneva, Switzerland.

His research interests are political economy,

institutionalism, and comparative public

policy, with particular attention to

environmental and water policy regimes.

His book

Modernization and Urban Water

Governance: Organizational Change and

Sustainability in Europe

was published by

Palgrave Macmillan in 2018. Information

on his research is available at https://sites.

google.com/site/bolognesithom/.

Email: thomas.bolognesi@unige.ch

Robbert Biesbroek is associate

professor in the Public Administration

and Policy Group, Wageningen University,

the Netherlands. His research focusses

on comparative public policy, policy (dis)

integration, and complex decision-making,

particularly in the field of climate change.

He published more than 60 peer-reviewed

articles, serves as coordinating lead author

for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (AR6, WGII), and is editor for

Regional Environmental Change

.

Email: robbert.biesbroek@wur.nl

Philipp Trein is senior researcher at

the University of Lausanne, Switzerland,

and senior fellow in the Institute of

European Studies at the University of

California, Berkeley. His research focuses on

comparative public policy, policy learning,

federalism, and political economy. His book

Healthy or Sick

?

Coevolution of Health

Care and Public Health in a Comparative

Perspective

was published by Cambridge

University Press in 2018. More information

on his research is available at http://www.

philipptrein.com.

Email: josefphilipp.trein@unil.ch

Viewpoint Article

Policy Coordination and Integration: A Research Agenda

Abstract: Coordinating and integrating different policies and public sector organizations is a major challenge

for practitioners and a continuing topic of interest for researchers. This Viewpoint essay argues that research on

this topic needs reorientation to provide better insights for practice and theory of policy making, as well as policy

implementation. The authors offer four suggestions on how future research could advance: (1) combining existing

conceptual and epistemological approaches more systematically; (2) complementing case studies and surveys with

large-N analyses and novel research tools and methods; (3) more systematic analysis of the causal mechanisms in

policy coordination and integration; and (4) more thorough study of the real-world impact of policy coordination

and integration.

One of the oldest and longest-standing debates

in public policy, public administration, and

political science is on linking existing policies

and coordinating public sector organizations (Peters

2015). In recent years, public policy and public

administration scholars have devoted considerable

attention to cross-sectoral responses to complex

problems, such as environmental protection (Jordan

and Lenschow 2010), climate change (Biesbroek

et al. 2010), financial crises (Provost and Gieve

2012), education (Woo 2018), public health (Trein

2017a), terrorism (May, Jochim, and Sapotichne

2011), agriculture (Chinseu, Stringer, and Dougill

2018), and unemployment (Champion and

Bonoli 2011). Such policy problems often crosscut

traditional boundaries of policy sectors, administrative

organizations, and countries and require coherent and

coordinated responses across scales; they might also

be perceived as wicked problems (Head and Alford

2015; Peters 2017; Peters and Tarpey 2019). The

increasing complexity of policy regimes (Bolognesi

2018; Bolognesi and Nahrath 2020) and policy

accumulation over time (Adam, Steinebach, and

Knill 2018) will likely create additional coordination

and integration challenges. Against this background,

researchers recognize that the cross-sectoral dimension

of public administration and public policy is pivotal

to meet these complex policy problems (Kuipers et al.

2015; Peters 2017).

Despite the agreement among scholars that

coordination is an important problem, the current

state of literature requires reorientation. In this

Viewpoint essay, we identify four challenges for

researchers and practitioners that could contribute

to advancing policy coordination and integration in

theory and practice.

Bridging Conceptual Fragmentation

The first challenge concerns conceptual

fragmentation. A recent literature review identifies

10 concepts that aim to capture the cross-sectoral

aspects of public policy and public administration

(Tosun and Lang 2017). The authors distinguish

between government-related concepts, such as

“joined-up-government” (Bogdanor 2005) and

“whole-of-government,” (Christensen and Lægreid

2007), and governance-centered concepts, such

as “policy integration” (Briassoulis 2004) and

“boundary-spanning policy regimes” (Jochim and

May 2010). In addition, other studies identify related

concepts and theoretical frameworks that address

cross-sectoral policy and administrative change,

including “policy coordination” (Peters 2015),

“collaborative governance” (Ansell and Gash 2008),

and “functional regulatory spaces” (Varone et al.

2013). Although all of this research shares a similar

ambition, its conceptual fragmentation has produced

few theoretical advancements over the last decades,

as certain concepts are closely linked to distinctive

empirical problems (Trein, Meyer, and Maggetti

2019). Using a variety of theories and conceptual

approaches is of value, but practitioners and scholars

should be aware of the similarities and differences

between them.

We call for future research to link these concepts

rather than inventing new ones. Some recent research

Philipp Trein

Robbert Biesbroek

Thomas Bolognesi

Guillermo M. Cejudo

Robert Duffy

Thurid Hustedt

Iris Meyer

University of Lausanne

Wageningen University

University of Geneva

Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE)

Colorado State University

Hertie School

University of Lausanne