Reconceptualising the 'policy mix' for innovation

TLDR: The authors argue that the emergence of the "policy mix" concept into common use in the field of innovation policy studies provides a window of opportunity to reconsider some basic and often hidden assumptions in order to better deal with a messy and complex, multi-level, mult-actor reality.

About: This article is published in Research Policy.The article was published on 2011-06-01 and is currently open access. It has received 776 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Policy mix & Policy studies.

Figures

Table 2: Variation in a policy instrument: the example of innovation voucher schemes in selected EU member states

Figure 1: Conceptualising policy mix interactions: dimensions, types and potential sources of tension

Table 1: some idealised actor roles in the (innovation) policy process

Table 3: Five forms of influence or confluence in policy instrument ‘blends’ or mixes Source: Authors based on Bressers and O‘Toole, 2005, p137.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What have the authors contributed in "Reconceptualising the ‘policy mix’ for innovation" ?

Nonetheless, the authors argue that the emergence of the ̳policy mix ‘ concept into common use in the field of innovation policy studies provides us with a window of opportunity to reconsider some basic and often hidden assumptions in order to better deal with a messy and complex, multi-level, multi-actor reality. The authors suggest that this reconceptualisation has important implications for the future scope and focus of prescriptive and analytical innovation policy studies. 

Q2. What are the future works mentioned in the paper "Reconceptualising the ‘policy mix’ for innovation" ?

The scope for successful policy action in an evolutionary world is more limited than in the idealistic but mechanistic world inhabited by many innovation policy studies, and any policy action will shape and constrain the future. Acknowledging this should be their starting point for thinking about the prescriptive scope of innovation policy studies in the future. 

Q3. What is the main unifying principle behind this diversely interested set of actors and institutions?

Indeed Hay suggests that the main unifying principle behind this diversely interested set of actors and institutions is a shared path-dependent trajectory of periodic transformation or reinvention. 

Q4. What is the significant early diffusion of the concept?

The most significant early diffusion of the concept has been into the literature on environmental policy and regulation (see for instance ETAN Expert Working Group, 1998; Sorrel and Sijm, 2003). 

Q5. What activities have driven the mainstreaming of the term into EU policy analysis activities?

Since 2003-4 CREST activities in particular have driven the ‗mainstreaming‘ of the term into EU policy analysis activities (such ERAWatch and the dedicated 'Policy Mix' project commissioned by DG RTD7). 

Q6. What is the key to determining the effects of public policies?

In discussing rationales, actors and roles, and instruments, the authors have already argued that goals, rationales and implementation choices are key in determining the effects of public policies. 

Q7. What are the characteristics of actors who are more often and more directly involved in a policy process?

Those actors who participate more frequently and more directly are often described as belonging to ‗interest networks‘ whilst those involved to a lesser extent are described as belonging to ‗discourse communities‘. 

Q8. What is the nature of the relationship between the interest networks and discourse communities that compose a policy?

The nature of the relationship between the interest networks and discourse communities that compose a policy subsystem are seen as important shapers of the content of public policy in that area. 

Q9. What do they argue about the functionalist orientation of policy instruments?

Lauscombe & Le Gales (2007, p.3) also criticise the functionalist orientation of much of the literature on policy instruments, arguing that instruments are not ―neutral devices‖ but rather bear a history, values and are thus social as well as technical. 

Q10. What is the argument that the complexity of the policy process precludes?

The authors have argued that the sheer complexity of the policy process precludes any staticcomparative analysis of instruments as if they were stable, discrete and independent units. 

Q11. What are the main characteristics of the interaction between actors and institutions?

These interactions… occur in the context of various institutional arrangements surrounding the policy process, which affect how the actors pursue their interests and ideas and the extent to which their efforts succeed.