Policy design dynamics: fitting goals and instruments in transport infrastructure planning in the Netherlands

Abstract

A policy design is a dynamic mix of goals and instruments that develop over time through processes of layering, drift, conversion, replacement and exhaustion. In the face of these dynamics, it is a key concern for policy designers to maintain fit between policy design elements by sustaining goal coherence, instrument consistency and the congruence of goals and instruments. Even though the temporal aspect is fundamental to new policy design thinking, few studies have dealt with the interrelation between policy dynamics and fit. With a longitudinal case study of Dutch transport planning, this research aims to provide insight into this interrelation and to highlight practical implications. This study reveals an intricate and ongoing fitting process between goals and instruments, in which any moment of coherence, consistency and congruence is temporary. During this fitting process, goals and instruments developed in different and largely separate trajectories. In this case, layering successfully improved congruence, but at the same time created inconsistencies between old and new instruments. To resolve some of these inconsistencies, conversion was used. These findings show that policy design is an ongoing process. The main practical implications of this study are that integrating the design of goals and instruments is an essential first practical step, that the ongoing monitoring and evaluation of policy design performance should be a central component in the ongoing process of policy design, and that a combination of layering and conversion can be a successful design approach to adjust instrument mixes to changing goals.

The importance of policy design fit for effectiveness: a qualitative comparative analysis of policy integration in regional transport planning

“…Congruence, finally, reflects the extent to which policy goals and means are mutually supportive and successful at working together to achieve corresponding goals (Kern & Howlett, 2009). The sum of goal coherence, mean consistency, and congruence of goals and means, may be described as policy design fit (van Geet et al, 2019b).…”

“…Policy design fit is a dynamic concept; policy design components develop over time, through processes of layering, drift, conversion, replacement, and exhaustion (Kern & Howlett, 2009;Rayner, et al, 2017;van Geet et al, 2019b). It is important to take into account these processes of change as they will impact the fit of policy design components (van Geet et al, 2019b). Cashore and Howlett (2007) provide useful insight on how processes of policy design change unfold between goals and means across different policy levels.…”

“…So far, it has remained unclear whether and how aligning policy goals and instruments help to effectively bring about desired policy integration. An earlier study by Van Geet et al (2019b) did reveal that discrepancies in the degree of integration between policy goals and policy instruments give rise to policy design incoherence, inconsistency, and incongruence. It is, however, unclear to what extent these mismatches between policy design elements impede effective policy integration.…”

“…Even though policy design thinking has expanded considerably over the years, a key component has always focused on bringing about intended policy outcomes by consciously matching goals and means (Howlett & Mukherjee, 2018a) because a good fit between goals and mean is said to minimize incompatibilities and exploit synergies, so as to improve policy design effectiveness (Rayner et al, 2017). In this setting, policy design fit is considered to be the sum of coherence of goals, consistency of means, and congruence of goals and means ( Van Geet et al, 2019a, 2019b. Contemporary studies on policy design often present these elements-coherence, consistency, and congruence-as the criteria that determine policy design effectiveness (e.g., Howlett & Rayner, 2013Kern & Howlett, 2009).…”

Finding the right tools for the job: Instrument mixes for land use and transport integration in the Netherlands

“…The second group is policy instruments which aim to span boundaries between the land use and transport domains and to encourage integration processes throughout the policy process (Marsden & Reardon, 2017;Mu & de Jong, 2016;Tornberg & Odhage, 2018; van Geet, Lenferink, & Leendertse, 2019). The LUTI literature describes several examples of such procedural policy instruments, e.g., establishing cross-departmental working groups (Jones & Lucas, 2000), introducing cross-departmental budgeting schemes (Macario, Caravalho, & Fermisson, 2005;Stead, 2008) or using planning instruments such as the Dutch "sustainable urbanization ladder" (see Duffhues & Bertolini, 2016) and the Swedish "four step principle" (see Johansson et al, 2018).…”