Sustaining statehood: A comparative analysis of vertical policy‐process integration in Denmark and Italy

Knill, Christoph; Steinbacher, Christina und Steinebach, Yves (4. November 2020): Sustaining statehood: A comparative analysis of vertical policy‐process integration in Denmark and Italy. In: Public Administration: S. 1-17

Abstract

In response to societal demands, democratic governments constantly adopt new policies. As existing policies are rarely abandoned, policies accumulate over time. Policy accumulation bears the challenge of overburdening implementation bodies, hence undermining policy effectiveness. Any escape from this situation requires democratic governments to strike a balance between policy responsiveness and effectiveness. We posit that the extent to which countries are able to achieve this depends on the vertical integration of processes of policy formulation and implementation. We provide a novel conceptualization of vertical policy‐process integration (VPI) that is based on two channels. While bottom‐up integration captures the extent to which policy implementers can communicate reasons for potential policy failure from the bottom up, top‐down integration indicates the degree to which the policy formulation level has to cover the implementation costs of the policies they produce. We illustrate our argument by an empirical analysis of VPI patterns in Denmark and Italy.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• EU Funded Grant Agreement Number: 788941
• EU-Projekte: Horizon 2020 > ERC Grants > ERC Advanced Grant > ERC Grant 788941: ACCUPOL - Unlimited Growth? A Comparative Analysis of Causes and Consequences of Policy Accumulation
• Fakultät: Sozialwissenschaften > Geschwister-Scholl-Institut für Politikwissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 320 Politik
• Sprache: Englisch