The impact of department structure on policy-making: How portfolio combinations affect interdepartmental coordination

Abstract

Departments are the primary structure of the bureaucratic apparatus of governments. They can be structured as silo organizations responsible for one policy sector or as non-silo organizations combining different portfolios under one roof. While several studies have identified explanations for the structure of government departments and their portfolio combinations, little is known about the effects portfolio combinations have on public policy. This article theoretically discusses department structure from a procedural perspective, and, taking an empirical approach, explores its effects on policy coordination as one aspect of policy-making. Circumventing the problem of lacking counterfactuals of national governments, the study analyzes the 16 German substate governments and their joint decision-making processes in the German Bundesrat. The analysis is based on two original datasets, one on the combination of portfolios in departments and one network dataset on the policy coordination process. Applying the tools of social network analysis, the findings show that departments develop preferences and goals and allocate attention based on their portfolio combination. Consequently, governments with atypical portfolio combinations are less integrated into the policy coordination process while departments comprised of similar policy sectors coordinate more closely with each other, which make them more likely

Achieving cross‐sectoral policy integration in multilevel structures—Loosely coupled coordination of “energy transition” in the German “Bundesrat”

“…Factually, on the other hand, committees are not as homogenous as implied. Members come from institutions that potentially represent different combinations of policy sectors depending on the portfolio allocation in the various Länder governments, which has important implications on position formation and coordination (Hegele, 2021). As most governments at federal and Länder levels are coalition governments, the departmental allocation is also linked to different party ideological affiliations.…”

“…Another relevant aspect is (again) the cross-cutting affiliations of committee members. To the degree that preference formation of committee members is mainly focused on their home department, they are likely to be motivated by sector-specific interests and/or turf protection considerations, thereby hampering policy integration (Hegele, 2021). Being delegates of their Land governments, committee members also need to take the position of other sectoral and party ideological positions in their Land government into account.…”

Are carbon emissions trading and green financial instruments synergistic? -Comprehensive quantitative research based on content analysis

“…The existing literature focuses on the vertical transmission of policy-making in a specific field under the vertical management system of the government and the horizontal coordination of policies in regions or departments [ 8 ]. Most of the studies on policy synergy are based on inter-governmental relations, departmental or regional cooperation with single-field policy combinations, and policy transmission under a multi-level administrative system [ 9 ]. However, few pieces of literature pay attention to the synergistic characteristics of policy mix, such as tool-goal-subject.…”