Governance and policy problems: instruments as unitary and mixed modes of policy intervention

Abstract

The public sector has developed a range of instruments for intervening in an economy and society that involve employing non-governmental actors to achieve the purposes of public policy. While not entirely novel, such instruments and their extensive use raise significant questions about government capacity, effectiveness, accountability and legitimacy. They often appear to be chosen with little regard for the nature of the underlying policy problems being addressed. For example, using contracts for social service delivery may undervalue the need for personal interactions that are almost impossible to express in contractual language. In response, this article discusses the links between instruments and policy problems, along with a selection of instruments involving insights into the design of effective interventions aimed at enhancing instrument control and legitimacy in governance.

Keywords:

• governance
• policy problems
• policy interventions
• instruments
• control and legitimacy

Notes

1. For example, one of the first actions of the new federal government of the United States was to authorise a contract for building a frigate. The practice of defense contracting has continued unabated since that time.

2. For a contrast, see Bressers and Klok (1988).

3. Not surprisingly, the commitments of these instrumentalists were related to their professional training. Lawyers would select legal/regulatory instruments, while economists would select economic instruments such as subsidies.

4. Again, not surprisingly, these individuals tended to have backgrounds in management or public administration.

5. Some scholars have advanced the concept of “super-wicked problems” (Levin, Cashore, Bernstein & Auld, 2012). These problems have all the characteristics of wicked problems, but also are more time sensitive and have a significant institutional component.

6. That is not to say that governments do not at times to do that. There are far too many examples of a bridge to nowhere.

7. Notwithstanding this, public pensions have been designed with many of the features of a stock programme, with the need to accumulate resources for future payments; while the logic of most pension programmes is that they have been converted to pay as you go.

8. The extreme example of this problem may be the space programme in which deep space exploration may take decades of commitment before any results emerge. The scientists and engineers who design a mission of this sort may well be retired or dead by the time anything comes of their efforts, and the next generation must be involved in the science, as well as the funding.