Abstract
For many years, policy-making has been envisioned as a process in which subsets of policy actors engage in specific types of interactions involved in the definition of policy problems, the articulation of solutions and their matching or enactment. This activity involves the definition of policy goals (both broad and specific), the creation or identification of the means and mechanisms that need to be implemented to realize these goals, and the set of bureaucratic, partisan, electoral and other political struggles involved in their acceptance and transformation into action. While past research on policy subsystems has often assumed or implied that these tasks could be undertaken by any actor, more recent research argues that distinct sets of actors are involved in these three tasks: epistemic communities that are engaged in discussions about policy dilemmas and problems; instrument constituencies that define and promote policy instruments and alternatives; and advocacy coalitions which compete to have their choice of policy alternative and problem frames adopted. Two of these three sets of actors are quite well known and, indeed, have their own literature about what it takes to be a member of an epistemic community or advocacy coalition, although interactions between the two are rarely discussed. The third subset, the instrument constituency, is much less known but has from the outset been considered in relation to these other policy actors. The articles in this special issue focus on better understanding the nature of actor interactions undertaken by instrument constituencies and how these relate to the other kinds of actors involved in policy-making.
Highlights
In much of the policy research published in recent decades, the principle actor many policy theorists argue is central to policy-making is the ‘subsystem’ or policy ‘community’ (McCool, 1998; Sabatier, 1991)
They are not necessarily self-interested but share some ideas and knowledge about the policy area in question, which sets them apart from other policy actors (Howlett & Cashore, 2009; Howlett, Ramesh, & Perl, 2009; Kingdon, 2011). These sets of actors go by a variety of different names – policy networks, policy communities, issue networks, and the like – but the general ‘subsystem family of concepts’ emerged in the 1950s to better explain the role of discourses and interest in the policy-making process. These ideas acknowledge the complex informal and formal exchanges that take place between both state and non-state policy actors and improve on previous work that emphasized material, self-interested activity on the part of a more limited range of actors involved in formal policy deliberations, such as think tanks, interest groups, lobbyists, bureaucrats and politicians (McCool, 1998)
The idea that a third major collective actor in the policy process who is concerned exclusively with the articulation and promotion of policy solutions exists provides an answer to what was previously a missing link in the study of policy actors and policy processes and helps answer several important questions that previously stymied scholars of policy formulation processes (Béland & Howlett, 2016). This special issue of Policy and Society focuses on instrument constituencies and how they are different and distinct from the other kinds of actors found in a policy subsystem, and how these different elements interrelate and interact with each other in the process of policy formulation
Summary
In much of the policy research published in recent decades, the principle actor many policy theorists argue is central to policy-making is the ‘subsystem’ or policy ‘community’ (McCool, 1998; Sabatier, 1991). The idea that a third major collective actor in the policy process who is concerned exclusively with the articulation and promotion of policy solutions exists provides an answer to what was previously a missing link in the study of policy actors and policy processes and helps answer several important questions that previously stymied scholars of policy formulation processes (Béland & Howlett, 2016) This special issue of Policy and Society focuses on instrument constituencies and how they are different and distinct from the other kinds of actors found in a policy subsystem, and how these different elements interrelate and interact with each other in the process of policy formulation. It is at this juncture that adding the concept of an instrument constituency to those of epistemic communities and advocacy coalitions is most helpful (Mukherjee & Howlett, 2015)
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