LIST OF PANELS

 This panel welcomes papers concerned with widening understandings of policy integration theoretically and empirically. From the need to coordinate fiscal policy across Europe, concerns about security and terrorism alongside more longstanding problems such as social exclusion, biodiversity loss and climate change, policy integration is back in vogue.  Such problems are often called ‘wicked’ as they are characterized by, among other things, issue and knowledge complexity and the need to deal with responses from multiple sectors, actors and governance levels. Often policy integration is conceptualised as either a process of governing, as policy outputs and/or policy outcomes (Jordan and Lenschow 2010; Adelle and Russel 2013, Howlett and Rayner 2007). As a process of governing, policy integration is closely linked to policy coordination. We do know that coordination is challenged due to conflicting interests within and across sectors (Scharpf 1994) and the difficulty organisations have handling complex issues (Simon, 1947, 1997). However, there is a dearth of detailed theoretical and empirical accounts examining different forms of coordination in practice as well as the effectiveness of different forms.  As for policy outputs and outcomes the literature is short on precise measures and applicability across policy contexts - in other words, how do we assess whether policy integration has been achieved? This panel welcomes papers that seek to advance understandings of policy integration as a process, output or outcome from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. Papers can be wholly theoretical or a combination of empirical findings and theory. Empirically-oriented papers may focus on one or more policy domains and/or political systems.

This panel is concerned with widening understandings of policy integration theoretically and empirically. From the need to coordinate fiscal policy across Europe, concerns about security and terrorism alongside more longstanding problems such as social exclusion, biodiversity loss and climate change, policy integration is back in vogue.  Such problems are often called ‘wicked issues’. Wicked issues are characterized by issue and knowledge complexity coupled with the need for responses from multiple sectors, actors and governance levels. Whilst policy integration is often forwarded as a strategy for improving the policy coherence of wicked problems (Jordan and Lenschow, 2010), it is an area of study that is still in need of development and clarification both theoretically and empirically. Despite interest in policy integration stemming back to at least the later 1960s (e.g. Lawrence and Lorsch 1967), waves of research in this area have only sporadically occurred with the most noticeable body of work occurring in the late 1990s and early 2000s (e.g. Peters 1998; Lenschow 2002; Pollitt 2003) on the back of political efforts to achieve more joined-up government around wicked policy issues (Russel and Jordan 2009).  However, much of this work is fragmented across different academic fields, including environmental social science, social policy, public administration and public policy. As a result, there is a lack of consistent theorization, which impedes the development of systematic empirical knowledge. With focused on policy integration once again renewed, it is important that existing research is consolidated and that both theoretical and empirical understandings of policy integration are enhanced through new research agendas. One consistent theme to emerge from this literature has been the conceptualisation of policy integration as either a process of governing  or as policy outputs and/or policy outcomes (Jordan and Lenschow 2010; Adelle and Russel 2013, Howlett and Rayner 2007). As a process of governing, policy integration is closely linked to policy coordination strategies to better join-up the policy making activities of the constitute parts of public administrations  (Peters, 1997 & 1998).  We do know that policy coordination is often challenged due to conflicting interests within and across sectors (Scharpf 1994), and the difficulty organisations have handling complex issues (Simon, 1947, 1997). However, there is a dearth of detailed theoretical and empirical accounts examining different forms of coordination in practice as well as the effectiveness of different forms.  As for policy outputs and outcomes the literature is short on precise measures and applicability across policy contexts - in other words, how do we assess whether policy integration has been achieved? This panel welcomes papers that seek to advance understandings of policy integration as a process, output or outcome from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.