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rules, and negotiations with an increasing number of actors. Public policy is character- ized by ad hoc or contingency arrangements and enmeshed networks, randomly by a proliferation of actors, multiple aims, hetero- geneity, cross-linking of issues and changes in the scales of reference territories. The capacity for direction of the state is subject to challenge; it seems to be losing its monopoly and is less the centre of political processes or of conflict regulation. At the same time, scholars identify logics of state expansion and recentralization (Gamble, 1993; Jacobs and King, 2009).
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rules, and negotiations with an increasing number of actors. Public policy is character- ized by ad hoc or contingency arrangements and enmeshed networks, randomly by a proliferation of actors, multiple aims, hetero- geneity, cross-linking of issues and changes in the scales of reference territories. The capacity for direction of the state is subject to challenge; it seems to be losing its monopoly and is less the centre of political processes or of conflict regulation. At the same time, scholars identify logics of state expansion and recentralization (Gamble, 1993; Jacobs and King, 2009).
To understand the dynamics of governance in this historically precise context, Lascoumes and Le Galès (2007) have suggested focusing precisely on policy instruments and instru- mentation in order to document change over time. In the past, policy instruments were not a central domain of interest for governance scholars and hardly more so for those work- ing on regulations. Policy instruments were analysed in a rather functionalist way to understand some minor processes of policy changes. By contrast, over the last two dec- ades the question of policy instruments has been very closely linked to the developments of modes of governance. To be more precise, the question of ‘new policy instruments’ has been associated with the making of ‘new governance’, if possible in order to innovate for the ‘new millennium’. Empirical research in different policy domains has identified significant change in the choice of policy instruments, both in the USA and Europe, in different policy sectors. In other words, innovations in policy instruments has become significant up to the point where it was suggested that the rise of new policy instruments might be an indicator of a ‘new governance’ in the making. Indeed, what accounts for the transition from ‘old’ com- mand and control to ‘new’ market-friendly policy instruments? How, if at all, do ‘new’ instruments differ from the ‘old’, and to what extent have they overcome the contradictions and unintended impacts of more traditional instruments?
Classically, the question of policy instru- ments has been studied in order to analyse public administration and policy change, as in the work of Dahl and Lindblom on eco- nomic policy (1953). It was also used in the critical management research of the 1980s and in the sociology of science. The work of Christopher Hood stands out as the reference in the field. In his classic book ‘The Tools of Government’ (1986), rewritten as ‘The Tools of Government in the Digital Age’ (with H. Margetts, 2007), which is seen as a contribution to the public policy implementa- tion literature, Hood’s analysis is mainly concerned with information-gathering and behaviour-modifying activities of govern- ments. The analysis provided a generic clas- sification to develop comparison over time and sectors. In the public policy literature, the use of policy instruments was also devel- oped to understand the change in the provision of services, the rise of automatic instruments to avoid blame (Weaver, 1989), to improve policy implementation (Bertelmans-Videc, Rist and Vedung, 1998) or to identify public policy change. The creation of a public policy instrument may serve to reveal a more profound change in public policy – in its meaning, in its cognitive and normative framework, and in its results. Writers of the various neoinstitutionalist persuasions have all turned towards highlighting institutional reasons for obstacles to change and tenden- cies towards inertia. Peter Hall first revived the question of public policy change when he identified different dimensions of change in this area, differentiating between reform objectives, instruments, and their use or their parameters: this led him to hierarchize three orders of public policy change (Hall, 1993). Thus, he situated instruments at the heart of his analysis of public policy change. Although a good deal of the literature proved quite functionalist, Linder and Peters (1989, 1990) moved towards a more political ana- lysis of the choice of instruments and their impacts.
This chapter does not aim to provide a sophisticated review of the policy instrumentthe dynamics of governance in this historically precise context, Lascoumes and Le Galès (2007) have suggested focusing precisely on policy instruments and instru- mentation in order to document change over time. In the past, policy instruments were not a central domain of interest for governance scholars and hardly more so for those work- ing on regulations. Policy instruments were analysed in a rather functionalist way to understand some minor processes of policy changes. By contrast, over the last two dec- ades the question of policy instruments has been very closely linked to the developments of modes of governance. To be more precise, the question of ‘new policy instruments’ has been associated with the making of ‘new governance’, if possible in order to innovate for the ‘new millennium’. Empirical research in different policy domains has identified significant change in the choice of policy instruments, both in the USA and Europe, in different policy sectors. In other words, innovations in policy instruments has become significant up to the point where it was suggested that the rise of new policy instruments might be an indicator of a ‘new governance’ in the making. Indeed, what accounts for the transition from ‘old’ com- mand and control to ‘new’ market-friendly policy instruments? How, if at all, do ‘new’ instruments differ from the ‘old’, and to what extent have they overcome the contradictions and unintended impacts of more traditional instruments?
Classically, the question of policy instru- ments has been studied in order to analyse public administration and policy change, as in the work of Dahl and Lindblom on eco- nomic policy (1953). It was also used in the critical management research of the 1980s and in the sociology of science. The work of Christopher Hood stands out as the reference in the field. In his classic book ‘The Tools of Government’ (1986), rewritten as ‘The Tools of Government in the Digital Age’ (with H. Margetts, 2007), which is seen as a contribution to the public policy implementa- tion literature, Hood’s analysis is mainly concerned with information-gathering and behaviour-modifying activities of govern- ments. The analysis provided a generic clas- sification to develop comparison over time and sectors. In the public policy literature, the use of policy instruments was also devel- oped to understand the change in the provision of services, the rise of automatic instruments to avoid blame (Weaver, 1989), to improve policy implementation (Bertelmans-Videc, Rist and Vedung, 1998) or to identify public policy change. The creation of a public policy instrument may serve to reveal a more profound change in public policy – in its meaning, in its cognitive and normative framework, and in its results. Writers of the various neoinstitutionalist persuasions have all turned towards highlighting institutional reasons for obstacles to change and tenden- cies towards inertia. Peter Hall first revived the question of public policy change when he identified different dimensions of change in this area, differentiating between reform objectives, instruments, and their use or their parameters: this led him to hierarchize three orders of public policy change (Hall, 1993). Thus, he situated instruments at the heart of his analysis of public policy change. Although a good deal of the literature proved quite functionalist, Linder and Peters (1989, 1990) moved towards a more political ana- lysis of the choice of instruments and their impacts.
This chapter does not aim to provide a sophisticated review of the policy instrument
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literature (see Hood, 2007a) but rather to see how research questions associated with governance brought in the policy instruments dimension.
Four examples of research projects devel- oped over at least a decade bear witness to this development.
First, in 1984, a political scientist, Fritz Scharpf and a sociologist, Renate Mayntz, established the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. For nearly two decades, that centre has analysed emerg- ing forms of governance in Europe. In Kooiman’s classic book on governance, Renate Mayntz (1993) stressed the failure of the German state to govern various groups. Influenced by Luhman, she analysed the capacity of groups and sectors to differenti- ate and to create their own rules in order to escape, to avoid the pressure of law and taxa- tion. She therefore framed a ‘governance’ agenda, calling for the mobilization of new policy instruments, more based upon negoti- ation, which would give back some govern- ance capacity to the state. She has therefore emphasized the need for policy instruments that can increase or re-establish the capacity of governments to govern, steer, guide or pilot (see also Mayntz, 2006). This discus- sion echoes classic themes in public policy research, not least the emphasis on imple- mentation failure. A parallel project was also underway at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, with Jan Kooiman and his group analysing the dynamics of networks in com- plex societies and the logics of gove