1st Edition

The Routledge Handbook of Policy Tools

Edited By Michael Howlett Copyright 2023
620 Pages 23 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

620 Pages 23 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

620 Pages 23 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This handbook provides a unique, systematic and comprehensive overview from leading experts in the field of the policy-making tools deployed at all the phases of the policy process. It covers the fundamentals of both new and established policy tools – from regulation and public enterprises to subsidies and information campaigns, as well as new tools, such as social impact investing, nudges,... Read more

Part 1: Introduction

1. What is a Policy Tool? An Overview of the Tools Approach to Public Policy

Michael Howlett

2. The History of the Tools Approach in the Policy Sciences: Key Definitions and Problematics

Michael Howlett

3. Where Tools are Deployed in the Policy Process: Policy Instruments and the Policy Cycle

Michael Howlett

4. The Need to Understand and Integrate Procedural and Substantive Tools

Achim Lang

Part 2: Basic Concepts

5. How Tools Work: Policy Instruments as Activators and Mechanisms

Giliberto Capano and Michael Howlett

6. What Tools Do: Policy Targeting and Behaviour

Michael Howlett

7. Portfolios of Policy Tools: Types of Policy Mixes

Michael Howlett and Pablo del Rio

8. Understanding Primary and Secondary Relationships Among Policy Tools in Policy Mixes

Michael Howlett, M. Ramesh and Azad Singh Bali

Part 3: Agenda-Setting Tools

9. Agenda-Setting Tools in Theory and Practice

Richa Shivakoti and Michael Howlett

10. Formal Agenda-Setting Government Tools: Periodic Evaluations and Reviews

Valerie Pattyn and Pirmin Bundi

11. Tools to Promote Popular Mobilization and Social Advocacy: Social Identities, Policy Programs, Careers, and Education

Johanna Hornung and Nils C. Bandelow

12: Consultation Tools and Agenda-Setting

Bert Fraussen

13: Tools for Managing the Media: Monitoring, Branding and Messaging

Alex Marland

Part 4: Policy Formulation Tools

14. Policy Formulation Tools: New Perspectives

Elisa Helena Xiol Y Ferreira, Andrew Jordan and John Turnpenny

15. Indicators and Measures as Policy Tools

Markku Lehtonen

16. A tools-based approach to understanding and optimizing policy advice in and beyond policy formulation

Jonathan Craft

17. Tools for Structuring Policy Advice: Commissions of Inquiry and Task Forces as Policy Formulation Instruments

Carolyn Johns and Greg Inwood

18. Collaboration as a Policy Tool in the Policy Formulation and Other Aspects of the Policy Process

Saba Siddiki, Jonathan E Beagles, Nicholas Augustus Oesterling

Part 5: Decision-Making Tools

19. Supporting Decision-Making within the Policy Cycle: Techniques and Tools

Irene Pluchinotta, Katherine A. Daniell and Alexis Tsoukiàs

20. Scenario Analysis, Forecasting and Backcasting as Policy Tools

Martijn van der Steen

21. Formal problem structuring tools and multi-criteria decision analysis

Mika Marttunen, Judit Lienert, and Valerie Belton

22. Simulation Modeling as a Policy Tool

Bernardo Alves Furtado

23. Policy Experiments and Pilots as Tools for Decision-Making

Sreeja Nair

Part 6: Policy Implementation Tools

24. The Organizational Tools of Government: The "Forgotten Fundamental"

Michael Howlett

25. Implementing Regulatory Tools: Regulatory Tools and the Use of Authority

Eric Windholz

26. Treasure Tools: Using Public Funds to Achieve Policy Objectives

Bronwyn McIlroy-Young, Daniel Henstra and Jason Thistlethwaite

27. Information as a Policy Tool: The Role of Government Communication

Michael Howlett

28. Non-State Market-Driven Tools: Capacity Challenges in Non-State Governance Contexts

Ben Cashore

Part 7: Policy Evaluation Tools

29. Theoretical Framework for Public Policy Evaluation: Investigative Designs and Outcomes in a Global Setting

Lilian Ribeiro de Oliveira and Claudia Souza Passador

30. Policy Evaluation Instruments: Tools for Learning

Antje Witting

31. Tools in Internal and External Evaluations

Nihit Goyal and Michael Howlett

32. Administrative Procedure as a Tool for Participatory and Efficient Public Governance

Polonca Kovac

33. The Democratic Potential of Evaluation as a Policy Making Instrument: A Possibility or a Chimera?

Jill Anne Chouinard and Tamara Krawchenko

Part 8: Selecting and Mixing Tools

34. Policy Tools and (New) Governance Arrangements: Policy Mixes and Their Effectiveness

Michael Howlett and Jeremy Rayner

35. Measuring Policy instrument interactions in policy mixes: Surveying the conceptual and methodological landscape

Moshe Maor and Michael Howlett

36. Policy Tools and the Attributes of Effectiveness: Spaces, Mixes and Instruments

M. Kerem Coban and Azad Singh Bali

37. Changing the Composition of Policy Mixes: Lock-In, Path Dependency, and the Sequencing of Policy Tools

Michael Howlett

38. Changing Policy Tools on the Fly: Calibrating Policy Instruments

M. Ramesh and Michael Howlett

Part 9: The Future of Policy Tools

39. The Future of Policy Tools: Past Trends and Current Directions

Sarah Giest, Ishani Mukherjee and Michael Howlett

40. Collaboration as the Future of Organizational Tools

Anka Kekez

41. Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Regulatory Tools

Fernando Filgueiras

42. The Future of Financial Tools: Will Social Impact Bonds Yield Results?

Daniel Bromberg

43. The Future of Informational Tools with Big Data Informatics: Opportunities and Challenges for Evidence-Based Policy-Making

M. Jae Moon and Sabinne Lee

44. The Future of Behavioural Tools in Public Policy

Stuti Rawat and Michael Howlett

Biography

Michael Howlett is Burnaby Mountain Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

"Comprised of 44 chapters and featuring a line-up of distinguished international scholars, this excellent handbook is the best and the most comprehensive overview available of the policy tools approach in public policy research. This is why all university students, academic researchers, and policy practitioners interested in policy tools should read it."

Daniel Béland, McGill University, Canada

"This comprehensive volume provides definitive analyses of the critical connections between choosing appropriate policy tools and achieving desired policy outcomes. Michael Howlett has assembled a stellar cast of international scholars. They demonstrate the critical challenges of designing policy mixes for important problems, while taking account of evaluation evidence and changing political contexts. They provide new insights into how emerging problems are being tackled through new techniques such as big data analysis, behavioural psychology and co-production."

Brian Head, University of Queensland, Australia

"This excellent volume advances understandings of how combinations of policy tools manipulate both the substance and the processes of policymaking. It provides a great service to anyone interested in using tools as an analytical framework. And it will be welcomed by everyone who is concerned with better understanding how the policy process works."

Jenny M Lewis, University of Melbourne, Australia

"The Handbook’s combination of the policy tools approach with the stages where the tools are deployed in the policy process - e.g., agenda setting, policy formulation and policy decision-making - has never been this comprehensively, systematically and successfully carried out before in the literature."

Evert Vedung, Uppsala University, Sweden

"The study of policy instruments traditionally constitutes a central topic of policy sciences. In the last decade, the research on policy tools accelerated very significantly. This important and complete book takes research on policy tools to a new level by organizing and synthesizing a large volume of new findings and perspectives."

Arnošt Veselý, Charles University, Czech Republic