3

WHERE TOOLS ARE DEPLOYED

IN THE POLICY PROCESS
Policy Instruments and the Policy Cycle

Michael Howlett

The role played by implementation instruments in policy design has been a central focus of most
research on policy tools. It is they which provide the substance or content of whatever design
deliberations occur at the formulation stage. However, policy instruments exist at all the stages
of public policymaking. There are specific instruments, like consultative mechanisms such as
public hearings or investigatory commissions, which serve as agenda-setting instruments. And
there are others, like the use of decision-making matrices and legislative committee systems,
which are used at the decision-making stage of the process. Even further, auditor generals and
other kinds of expenditure evaluation systems are instruments used at the evaluation stage of the
policy cycle. How these tools operate and their effects on policymaking and policy outcomes
are new areas of research in instrument studies.

Introduction: Policy Tools and the Policy Cycle

The exact processes by which policy decisions are taken vary greatly by jurisdiction and sector
and reflect the great differences and nuances that exist between different forms of government –
from military regimes to liberal democracies and within each type – as well as the particular con-
figuration of issues, actors and problems various governments, of whatever type, face (Ingraham,
1987; Howlett, Ramesh and Perl, 2009).
In some circumstances, policy decisions will be more highly contingent and “irrational” – that
is, driven by situational logics and opportunism rather than careful deliberation and assessment –
than others (Kingdon, 1984; Cohen, March and Olsen, 1979; Dryzek, 1983; Eijlander, 2005;
Franchino and Hoyland, 2009). This high level of contingency in decision-making has led some
critics and observers of policy design efforts to suggest that policies are less “designed,” in the
sense that a house or a piece of furniture can be, than arrived at through odd combinations of
luck and timing (Dryzek and Ripley, 1988). However, many other scholars disagree with this
assessment. They view policymaking not as primarily a random, ritualistic or symbolic form of
state activity, but rather as a conscious matter of attempting to match the means of policy imple-
mentation to policy goals, however those are formulated. That is, policymaking is viewed as an
instrumental problem-solving activity, one in which various governing resources are marshaled
into a set of techniques which could, at least potentially or theoretically, achieve the aims, objec-
tives and goals of policymakers.

36 DOI: 10.4324/9781003163954-4
 Where Tools Are Deployed

Either view, however, needs to grapple with the questions of where and when in the policy
process policy tools are deployed. In this effort, it is helpful to envision the policy process as a
series of stages or sub-stages in which policymakers grapple with problems and attempt to arrive
at some sort of solution to them. A model of the policy process which is very helpful in this
regard is that of the policy cycle (Howlett, Ramesh and Perl, 2020; Wegrich).

The Policy Cycle Model

The idea of viewing policy-making as a process or a cycle or activities has been used to model
policy-making activities since the earliest days of the discipline (Hawkesworth, 1992) and is
helpful when examining policy tools and the purposes to which they are put.
A five-stage model of the policy process has been most commonly used (Lyden et al., 1968;
Simmons et al., 1974; Brewer, 1974; Brewer and deLeon, 1983; Jones, 1984; Anderson, 1984)
(see Figure 3.1). In this model, “agenda-setting” refers to the first stage in the process. This is
the earliest stage in a sequence of policy development when a problem is initially sensed by
policy actors and a variety of solutions put forward. “Policy formulation” refers to the second
stage in the process in which specific policy options are developed within government. In this
stage, the range of plausible choices is narrowed by excluding the infeasible ones, and efforts are
made by various actors to have their favoured solution ranked highly among the remaining few.
“Decision-making” refers to the third stage in which governments adopt a particular course of
action or non-action. This can involve the adoption of none, one, or some combination of the
solutions remaining at the end of the estimation stage. In the fourth stage of “policy implemen-
tation,” governments put their decisions into effect. This involves the use of some combination
of the tools of public administration in order to alter the distribution of goods and services in
society in a way that is broadly compatible with the sentiments and values of affected parties.
Finally, “policy evaluation” refers to the fifth stage in the process, in which the results of poli-
cies are monitored by both state and societal actors, often leading to the reconceptualization of
policy problems and solutions in the light of experiences encountered with the policy in ques-
tion (Howlett, Ramesh and Perl, 2009).

Stages of Applied Corresponding Stages in

Problem Solving Policy Formaton

Problem Recogniton Agenda Setng

Proposal of Soluton Policy Formulaton

Selecton of Soluton Decision-Making

Putng Soluton into

Policy Implementaton
Efect

Monitoring Results Policy Evaluaton

Figure 3.1 The Five Stages of the Policy Cycle and Their Relationship to Applied Problem Solving

37
 Michael Howlett

5. Policy 1. Agenda-
Evaluaton Setng

4. Policy 2. Policy
Implementaton Formulaton
Policy Cycle

3. Decision-
Making

Figure 3.2 The Policy Cycle

The stages in applied problem solving and the corresponding stages in the policy process are
depicted in Figures 3.1 and 3.2.
Policy instruments extend to activities located in all stages of the policy process, including not
just policy formulation and implementation, where they have traditionally been studied, but also
agenda-setting, decision-making and policy evaluation.

Styles of Policy Activity in Each Stage of the Policy Cycle

Agenda-Setting
In the scholarly literature on agenda-setting, a useful distinction is drawn between the systemic
or unofficial public agenda and the institutional or formal, official agenda. The systemic agenda
“consists of all issues that are commonly perceived by members of the political community as
meriting public attention and as involving matters within the legitimate jurisdiction of existing
governmental authority” (Cobb and Elder, 1972). This is essentially a society’s agenda for discus-
sion of public problems, such as crime or health care, water quality or wilderness preservation.
The formal or institutional agenda, on the other hand, consists of only a limited number of
issues or problems to which attention is devoted by policy elites (Baumgartner and Jones, 1991;
Kingdon, 1984). Each society has literally hundreds of issues which some citizens find to be
matters of concern and would have the government do something about. However, only a small
proportion of the problems on the public or systemic agenda are actually taken up by policy
actors actively involved in policy development.

Policy Formulation
Studies of policy formulation have emphasized the importance of actors interacting to develop
and refine policy options for government (Freeman, 1955; Linder and Peters, 1990). But unlike
agenda-setting, in which the public is often actively involved, in policy formulation the relevant
policy actors are restricted to those who not only have an opinion on a subject but also have

38
 Where Tools Are Deployed

some minimal level of knowledge of the subject area, allowing them to comment, at least hypo-
thetically, on the feasibility of options put forward to resolve policy problems.
Scholars over the years have developed a variety of taxonomies to help identify the key
actors in these policy subsystems, what brings them together, how they interact and what effect
their interaction has on policy development ( Jordan, 1981, 1990a, 1990b; Jordan and Schubert,
1992). Most of these distinguish between a larger set of actors with some knowledge of the
policy issue in question and a smaller set in which actors not only have requisite knowledge but
also have established patterns of more or less routine interactions with each other (Knoke, 1993).
Membership in knowledge-based policy communities extends to actors such as state poli-
cymakers (administrative, political and judicial), members of non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) concerned with the subject, members of the media who report on the subject, aca-
demics who follow or research the area and members of the general public who, for whatever
reason, have taken an interest in the subject (Sabatier, 1987, 1988). In many issue areas, the pol-
icy community also involves members of other organizations such as businesses, labour unions
or various formalized interest groups or professional associations concerned with government
actions in the sector concerned. In some cases, international actors such as multinational cor-
porations, international governmental or non-governmental organizations or the governments
of foreign states, can also be members of sectoral policy communities (Haas, 1992). A subset of
these actors who interact within more formalized institutions and procedures of government
are defined as members of policy networks (Coleman and Skogstad, 1990; Marin and Mayntz,
1991; Pross, 1992). These policy networks include representatives from the community but are
“inner circles” of actors who effectively hold the power to veto many policy options as unten-
able or infeasible.
The type and nature of options which come forward to governments from the policy formu-
lation phase are affected by the interaction of networks and communities (Howlett and Rayner,
1995; Smith, 1993; Smith, 1994; Howlett and Ramesh, 1998; Howlett, 2002a). In open sub-
systems where networks have many members and communities share many idea sets, it can be
expected that a propensity for new, radical alternatives to the status quo may be generated in
the policy formulation process. In closed subsystems, where networks have few members and
communities are dominated by a single idea set, on the other hand, a status quo orientation will
emerge in the policy options developed and put before decision-makers. In subsystems where
only a few actors make up the network but communities are open to new ideas, significant
alternatives to the status quo may emerge from the formulation process, but usually over the
opposition of network members. In subsystems where many actors deal with few ideas, marginal
or incremental options tend to develop.

Decision-Making
Many early studies of policymaking in companies, governments and organizations conducted
largely by students of public and business administration argued that decision-makers attempt to
follow a systematic method for arriving at logical, efficient decisions. They argued that policy-
makers achieved superior results when they first established a goal, explored alternative strategies
for achieving it, attempted to predict its consequences and the likelihood of each occurring and
then chose the option which maximized potential benefits at least cost or risk (Edwards, 1954;
Gawthrop, 1971; Weiss, 1977; Carley, 1980; Cahill and Overman, 1990).
This model was “rational” in the sense that it prescribed a standard set of procedures for poli-
cymaking which were expected to lead in all circumstances to the choice of the most efficient
means of achieving policy goals ( Jennings, 1987; Torgerson, 1986). Pure “rational” models of

39
 Michael Howlett

decision-making thought of policymakers as neutral “technicians” or “managers” who identify a

problem and then find the most effective or efficient way of solving it (Elster, 1991). Many of the
latest efforts to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of public policy decision-making, the
“evidence-based policy movement” (Pawson, 2006), focus on the application of a systemic eval-
uative rationality to policy problems (Sanderson, 2006; Mintrom, 2007) in classic rational style.
Empirical research into decision-making processes, however, has found a more complex
world in which disputes and conflicts over the meaning and definition of policy goals and means
were frequent and in which political processes of bargaining and negotiation often outweighed
“rational” deliberations and calculations of costs and benefits. Policymakers were often found to
be neither necessarily neutral nor competent, and other models of the public policy decision-
making processes have argued this is not an accidental situation but rather an inherent and
unavoidable characteristic of the policy-making exercise.

Policy Implementation
Implementation is the stage in the policy process in which public policy decision-making must
be translated into action. It has long been considered one of the most difficult and critical stages
in the policy process – the phase in which any deficiencies in the design of the policy or any
vulnerabilities with respect to the external environment will become visible.
The set of tasks practically associated with implementation is best understood as a “continuum
of strategic and operational task functions” (see Table 3.1). Tasks related to implementation range
from high-level “strategic” design considerations to more operational-level design and capacity-
building tasks in later stages of the policy process. Strategic functions relate to the highest levels
of policy formulation and overall responsibility for implementation and overlap considerably with
other stages in the policy-making process, such as agenda-setting and decision-making.
As important as these tasks are, implementation is often neglected in practice. Policymak-
ers often fail to prepare the ground systematically for implementation, resulting occasionally in
high-profile policy disasters and even more frequently in policies that perform far below expec-
tation. One key reason for this neglect is the sheer complexity, both analytical and practical, that
implementation poses. Another reason is implementation’s political sensitivity. In policy for-
mulation and even decision-making, critical differences between stakeholders may be papered
over by using vague language or even postponing decisions on mission-critical but politically

Table 3.1 Implementation Tasks

Policy Implementation Program Implementation Project Implementation

(Emphasis on Strategic Tasks) <-----------------------> (Emphasis on Operating Tasks)

• Constituency building • Program design • Clear objectives

• Overall policy objective setting • Capacity building for • Defined roles and
and design implementers responsibilities
• Designing the implementation • Collaboration with multiple • Plans/schedules
framework – overall groups and organizations • Rewards and sanctions
responsibilities and resource • Expanding resources and • Feedback/adaptation
allocations to different actors support mechanisms
• Legitimization • Active leadership
• Resource mobilization

Source: Adapted from Table 2.1 in Brinkerhoff and Crosby (2002), p. 25

40
 Where Tools Are Deployed

or bureaucratically “sensitive” aspects of policies outright. This has the advantage of keeping a
policy process moving forward and “buying time” for more supportive coalitions to be built. But
the consequences of such avoidance become unavoidable during the implementation stage, in
which coordinators will struggle to generate, allocate and control resources and interpret policy
intentions. The intended outputs and results of a policy will fail to materialize even as negative
side effects of policies become more evident.
The high degree of interdependence among stakeholders involved in the integrated policy-
making process increases the complexity and vulnerability of the implementation challenge. As
a result, the stakes in “getting implementation right” – in designing interventions that make suc-
cessful implementation more likely and in anticipating and building in mechanisms to overcome
implementation difficulties – are particularly high calculations from the onset.

Policy Evaluation
The last stage of the cycle is policy evaluation. For many early observers, policy evaluation was
expected to consist of assessing whether a public policy was achieving its stated objectives and, if
not, what could be done to eliminate impediments to their attainment. Thus David Nachmias
defined policy evaluation as “the objective, systematic, empirical examination of the effects
ongoing policies and public programs have on their targets in terms of the goals they are meant
to achieve” (Nachmias, 1979).
Often, however, public policy goals are not stated clearly enough to find out if and to what
extent they are being achieved, nor are they shared by all key policy actors. Moreover, the pos-
sibilities for objective analysis are also limited because of the difficulties involved in the attempt
to develop objective standards by which to evaluate government’s level of success in dealing with
subjective claims and socially constructed problems.
What is significant in the evaluative process is thus not so much ultimate success and failure
but that policy actors and the organizations and institutions they represent can learn from the
formal and informal evaluation of policies in which they are engaged. This can lead them to
modify their positions in the direction of greater substantive or procedural policy change, or it
can lead them to resist any alteration to the status quo (Majone, 1989).
A significant variable in this regard is the capacity of an organization to absorb new informa-
tion. As Cohen and Levinthal argued in the case of the private firm:

[T]he ability to evaluate and utilize outside knowledge is largely a function of the level
of prior related knowledge. At the most elemental level, this prior knowledge includes
basic skills or even a shared language but may also include knowledge of the most
recent scientific or technological developments in a given field. Thus, prior related
knowledge confers an ability to recognize the value of new information, assimilate it,
and apply it to (commercial) ends. These abilities collectively constitute what we call
(a firm’s) “absorptive capacity.”
(Cohen and Levinthal, 1990)

Policy evaluations do not necessarily result in major policy change. That is, while the concept
of evaluation suggests that an implicit “feedback loop” is an inherent part of the policy cycle, in
many cases, this loop may not be operationalized (Pierson, 1993). Path dependence, in which
policies are set on “trajectories” following some “critical juncture,” can hinder policy change and
learning (Pierson, 2000). Based on the idea of “increasing returns,” Pierson has argued that posi-
tive feedback can support an existing policy without it necessarily being the best solution to a

41
 Michael Howlett

problem (Pierson, 2000; Liebowitz and Margolis, 1995). Organizational-institutional properties

(Eising, 2002; Olsen and Peters, 1996), including varieties of principle-agent models (Dunlop
and Radaelli, 2010; Waterman and Meier, 1998), international governance regimes (Haas, 1992)
and bargaining and mutual adjustment processes (Elgström and Jönsson, 2000) are also often seen
as barriers to learning from policy evaluations.

Studying Policy Tools

As Chapter 1 has set out, policy tool use extends to both the means or mechanisms through
which goals are given effect and to the goals themselves, since goal articulation inevitably involves
considerations of feasibility, or what is practical or possible to achieve in given conjunctures or
circumstances given the means at hand (Huitt, 1968, Majone, 1975; Ingraham, 1987). Even
when the goals pursued are not laudable, such as personal enrichment or military adventurism,
or when the knowledge or means utilized is less than scientific, such as religious or ideologically
inspired dogma or implementation preferences, and even when these efforts are much more ad
hoc and much less systematic than might be desired, as long as a desire for effective resource use
in goal attainment guides policymaking, it will involve some effort at analysis.
Policy alternatives are composed of different sets or combinations of the policy elements
described here. Policy instruments are the techniques or means through which states’ attempt
to attain their goals. Other terms have been developed in the field of policy studies to describe
the same phenomena, such as “governing instruments,” “policy tools” and the “tools of govern-
ment”, and while these sometimes are used to refer to different mechanisms and calibrations of
policy means, they are more often used synonymously.
These are the subject of deliberation and activity at all stages of the policy process as they
affect both the agenda-setting and policy-formulation processes as well as being the subject of
decision-making policy implementation and evaluation (Howlett, 2005; Howlett, Ramesh and
Perl, 2009).
They have a special place in the consideration and study of policy design because, taken
together, they comprise the contents of the toolbox from which governments must choose in
building or creating public policies. Policy design elevates the analysis and practice of policy
instrument choice – specifically tools for policy implementation – to a central focus of study,
making their understanding and analysis key design concerns (Salamon, 1981; Linder and Peters,
1990). Instrument choice from this perspective is, in a sense, public policymaking, and under-
standing and analyzing potential instrument choices involved in implementation activity are
policy design. The role of a textbook in policy design thus is one of assisting “in constructing an
inventory of potential public capabilities and resources that might be pertinent in any problem-
solving situation” (Anderson, p. 122).
As Figure 3.3 shows, although policy instruments appear in all stages of the policy process,
those affecting the agenda-setting, formulation, decision-making and evaluation stages of the
policy process are very significant and important in public management (Wu, Ramesh, Howlett
and Fritzen, 2010) but understudied when compared to the very wide array of studies of imple-
mentation tools and processes.
This is because the key sets of policy instruments of concern to policy designers have
historically been those linked to policy implementation in the first instance and to policy
formulation in the second (Howlett, 2011). In the first category, we would find examples of
many well-known governing tools, such as public enterprises and regulatory agencies, which
are expected to alter or affect the delivery of goods and services to the public and government

42
 Where Tools Are Deployed

Legal Governance
Policy Process
Mode

Corporatst
Policy Process
Governance Mode

Network
Policy Process
Governance Mode

Agenda Setng e.g. . Trade Surveys

e.g. Regulatory
Policy Formulaton
Impact Assessments

e.g. Mult-Criteria
Market Governance Analyses Focusing
Policy Process Decision-Making
Mode on Employment and
Income Efects

Policy e.g. Cost-of-Service

Implementaton Price Regulatons

e.g. Consultatons
Policy Evaluaton with Afected
Companies

Figure 3.3 An Example of the Range of Policy Instruments by Governance Mode and Stage of the Policy
Cycle

(Salamon, 2002), while in the second, we would find instruments such as regulatory impact
or environmental impact appraisals, which are designed to alter and affect some aspect of the
nature of policy deliberations and the consideration and assessment of alternatives (Turnpenny
et al., 2009).
The role played by implementation instruments in policy design has been a central focus
of most research on policy tools. It is they which provide the substance or content of what-
ever design deliberations occur at the formulation stage. However, as we have seen, policy
instruments exist at all the stages of public policy-making. There are specific instruments, like
consultative mechanisms such as public hearings or investigatory commissions, which serve
as agenda-setting instruments. And there are others, like the use of decision-making matrices
and legislative committee systems, which are used at the decision-making stage of the process.
Even further, auditor generals and other kinds of expenditure evaluation systems are instru-
ments used at the evaluation stage of the policy cycle (Wu et al., 2010; Heilman and Walsh,
1992).
How these tools operate and their effects on policymaking and policy outcomes are areas of
research in instrument studies which other chapters in this book explore.

43
 Michael Howlett

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 4
THE NEED TO UNDERSTAND
AND INTEGRATE PROCEDURAL
AND SUBSTANTIVE TOOLS
Achim Lang

The chapter makes a clear distinction between substantive and procedural policy tools and dis-
cusses various typologies and types of tools. The chapter stresses the need to integrate procedural
and substantive tools in a comprehensive way in order to tackle issues such as policy integration
and wicked problems. The emphasis is on procedural tools, which are of particular importance
for boundary-spanning activities. Procedural tools are delineated according to different phases in
the policy cycle, as well as according to the involved organizations (including their preferences
and problem perceptions) and the quality of their interactions.

Introduction
Governments, like any other organization, have developed tools or instruments to advance their
objectives. Policy tools represent a systematic description of “what government does” (Hood,
1983) and what it intends to achieve. From this perspective, government can be conceptual-
ized as a set of administrative tools to affect and supervise the behavior of individuals and
organizations.
The use of such tools dates back to prehistoric times when hunter-gatherer societies first
developed a kind of functionally differentiated structure, and rudimentary planning and imple-
mentation processes were developed. The study of policy tools can be traced back to prehistoric
accounts 4,000 years ago during the Xia dynasty in China (Seeger, 1934), the philosophical
treaty of the duties of a statesman (De Officiis) by Cicero, or the somewhat malicious recommen-
dations of Machiavelli in The Prince. These practices and accounts rested on a narrow, authorita-
tive, and hierarchical type of policy process based on charismatic and traditional leadership and
domination (Weber, 2019). Even the legal-rational model of Western societies, developed over
the last two centuries, still focused on authoritative (legal) means as the primary source of gov-
ernment (Salamon, 2000).
In the wake of the newly established policy sciences, a massive proliferation has occurred
in studies analyzing tools of governments (Le Galès, 2011; Peters, 2000; Schneider & Ingram,
1990). This has brought about a shift in research focus away from more descriptive and legal
accounts of policy tools to the development of categories (Bemelmans-Videc et al., 2011;
Hood, 1983; Howlett, 2020), the effects of tools on policy objectives (Lang, 2019; Schneider &
Ingram, 1990), the choice of policy tools (Howlett, 2018), and configurational analyses of

DOI: 10.4324/9781003163954-5 47