Policy Coordination

The Challenge of Policy Coordination

• Policy coordination is a long-standing issue for governments that has gained importance due to evolving problems and the spread of "New Public Management" ideas
• The paper explores the causes and mechanisms of coordination problems, addressing its limits as a governing solution
• Making public policy involves designing, most discussions center on creating or improving individual programs
• Focusing too narrowly on a single program can lead to oversights, one program's success relies on others
• Programs should ideally be designed for policy integration, creating synergy and reducing conflicts
• In reality, programs need coordination after authorization, requiring designers to consider elements conducive to coordination
• Coordination has been a governmental concern for centuries, especially since the 1980s with the rise of New Public Management
• The emphasis on individual program management and autonomous agencies led to further fragmentation
• Tony Blair and others called for a "joined up" government to address fragmentation
• Complex problems like climate change require substantial coordination across government
• This paper emphasizes horizontal coordination within the public sector
• Vertical coordination is significant, especially in federal systems like the EU where central governments steer autonomous sub-national entities
• The paper examines coordination definitions, measurement, obstacles, instruments, and limitations

What is Coordination?

• Coordination involves adjusting decisions to minimize adverse consequences for other decisions
• Fritz Scharpf (1994) defines:
  • Negative coordination: Avoiding conflicts;
  • Positive coordination: Cooperating on solutions
• Coordination addresses conflicts, program redundancy, and coverage gaps to improve services
• Strategic coordination involves aligning programmes with broad government goals for issues like public health or sustainable development, acting prospectively
• Les Metcalfe (1994) developed a scale of coordination levels from independence to policy integration
• Strong central institutions can reach higher coordination levels
• Organizations can compare patterns of interaction against Metcalfe's scale
• Coordination efforts can focus on top or bottom levels of organizations
• Harmonizing programs at the top can prevent problems
• Attempting coordination at the top can cause political conflicts
• Coordination is easier when there are real clients with the needs involved

Why Care About Coordination?

• Coordination saves time and resources by:
  • Avoiding duplication of programs and repeated requests for information
  • Reducing contradictions between conflicting programs
  • Preventing displacement, where one organization's decisions harm others
  • Counteracting overemphasis on vertical management within individual organizations, which can neglect horizontal cooperation
  • Meeting changing client demands for integrated services to groups like children and the elderly
  • Addressing cross-cutting problems that span departmental responsibilities
  • Improving government's image and public confidence

Why Do Not We Coordinate?

• Coordination faces resistance due to:
  • Specialization: Specialization is valued in government, contrasting with coordination, Herbert Simon (1947) notes the tension between these values
  • Power: Information is power, so organizations are incentivized to horde rather than share knowledge
  • Performance management: Performance management focuses on individual targets rather than collective goals
  • Turf: Organizations defend their budgets, personnel, and policies out of fear of endangering them
  • Beliefs and ideologies: Individuals in specialized organizations believe in their mission, reinforced by training, leading to narrow problem conceptions
  • Politics: Political factors like coalition governments or divisions between federal and regional entities hinder coordination
  • Accountability: Strict financial and legal accountability impedes flexibility and shared responsibility

How Do We Achieve Coordination?

• Mechanisms include:
  • Networks: Informal networks of civil servants facilitate coordination outside official channels
  • Networks of social actors and government provide bottom-up coordination by identifying contradictions; rely on public sector willingness
  • Collaboration: Organizations reach common understanding and address conflict-based issues with more effective coordination
  • Common frames are the product of bargaining between the organizations involved
  • Individual action depends on the willingness to bargain over problem definitions in collaboration
  • Hierarchy: Government authorities use hierarchical authority from the center to address coordination problems, they are not committed to particular agencies

Hierarchy

• All hierarchy depends on the authority of actors in the core executive-presidents and prime ministers
• Coordination involves prioritizing and implementing efficiently
• Central agencies (ministries of finance, budget offices) guide government priorities using budgetary and legislative influence
• The government cabinet uses cabinet committees or junior ministers for collective policies, but these lack resources
• Superministries can create internal coordination but retain organizational cultures
• Governments develop procedures, using resources like program management or requiring ministers to provide colleagues with notice to assess proposals
• Budgets can address coordination: Aaron Wildavsky noted the budget is a statement of government priorities
• This can help identify programs that need to work together
• "Czars" is a recent mechanism giving officials responsibility for policy domains

Is Coordination Always The Answer?

• Coordinate effectively, policy coordination must be done so in the right setting
• Public sector policy makers and policy designers must understand the policy settings
• Coordination may not always be the (only) answer as specialization is also valuable, governments create experts to focus on policy
• Reform associated with the New Public Management have created more specialized agencies
• Coordination efforts to promote science and the arts can undermine efforts
• Coordination becomes more valuable in the exploitation of fundamental scientific discoveries
• Some rationality in redundancy can be beneficial
• Government must be certain that the tasks can be completed
• National security systems may have highest possible probability of detecting threats
• Too much coordination can threaten privacy for citizens
• Integrated information may make service delivery for social and health programs difficult
• Competition used for internal control in the public sector
• Central agencies may get nervous about capacity to monitor the organizations and their budgets

Looking at Coordination

• Coordination must be done right
• There is no standardized method, but to analyze the instruments required to address challenges needed
• Coordination problems need to be matched to their circumstances
• Political systems may emphasize coordination in government more strongly
• Practical issues for producing coordination are troublesome
• Effort should be invested in services by use of coordination