LIST OF PANELS

The concept of policy design —both as a verb and a noun— refers simultaneously to a process and a product in order to underline the differences between non-design (the absence of decision), unconscious design (decision-making without a plan) and conscious design (decision-making based on policy learning). For the past four decades, the policy design framework has produced many different theories to assess the issues of causation, instrumentation, intervention and evaluation in decision-making and collective action. Causation is first and foremost related to problem structuring. Instrumentation commonly refers to the mobilization of state and private resources of information, regulation, finances and administrative organization. Evaluation is both about values and impact assessment, about what state and non-state actors consider “good” or “bad”, and how they assess the causal process conducting to policy outputs (policy instruments calibration) and outcomes (the ultimate result of the design process). Intervention combines coordination and policy style into a single entity: a governance mode.

This panel is dedicated to operationalizing the latter. At the crossroad of policy analysis and policy-making, of fundamental and applied research, the concept of intervention comes from the literature on public administration and democratic governance. A governance mode is the product of a coordination model (at the intra-state level) and a political interplays model (between the state, society and the market), or policy style. While infra-state coordination can be centralised or decentralised, political interplays can be collaborative or competitive, according to government´s policy style. There is arguably a relationship between coordination and political interplays, insofar as the government's will and capacity to attend social demands depend on the coordination model favored by this government. However, this is no straightforward causation, so we’d rather deal separately with each one to avoid endogeneity. Which raises the problem of institutional consistency. At the very best, the institutional design articulates coordination and political interplays in a consistent governance mode. Yet there can also be an inconsistency (in institutional terms) between coordination and political interplays, which might eventually explain the outbreak of an implementation gap. 

In this panel we attempt to explore the relationship between policy design and institutional design. We invite scholars to present their research based on the following questions: How does policy design affect institutional consistency? How does institutional design affect policy outcomes?

We welcome papers based on comparative policy analysis or within-case studies, to illustrate the conceptual and theoretical arguments made by their authors.

The concept of policy design —both as a verb and a noun— refers simultaneously to a process and a product in order to underline the differences between non-design (the absence of decision), unconscious design (decision-making without a plan) and conscious design (decision-making based on policy learning). For the past four decades, the policy design framework has produced many different theories to assess the issues of causation, instrumentation, intervention and evaluation in decision-making and collective action. Causation is first and foremost related to problem structuring. Instrumentation commonly refers to the mobilization of state and private resources of information, regulation, finances and administrative organization. Evaluation is both about values and impact assessment, about what state and non-state actors consider “good” or “bad”, and how they assess the causal process conducting to policy outputs (policy instruments calibration) and outcomes (the ultimate result of the design process). Intervention combines coordination and policy style into a single entity: a governance mode.

This panel is dedicated to operationalizing the latter. At the crossroad of policy analysis and policy-making, of fundamental and applied research, the concept of intervention comes from the literature on public administration and democratic governance. A governance mode is the product of a coordination model (at the intra-state level) and a political interplays model (between the state, society and the market), or policy style. While infra-state coordination can be centralised or decentralised, political interplays can be collaborative or competitive, according to government´s policy style. There is arguably a relationship between coordination and political interplays, insofar as the government's will and capacity to attend social demands depend on the coordination model favored by this government. However, this is no straightforward causation, so we’d rather deal separately with each one to avoid endogeneity. Which raises the problem of institutional consistency. At the very best, the institutional design articulates coordination and political interplays in a consistent governance mode. Yet there can also be an inconsistency (in institutional terms) between coordination and political interplays, which might eventually explain the outbreak of an implementation gap. 

In this panel we attempt to explore the relationship between policy design and institutional design. We invite scholars to present their research based on the following questions: How does policy design affect institutional consistency? How does institutional design affect policy outcomes?

We welcome papers based on comparative policy analysis or within-case studies, to illustrate the conceptual and theoretical arguments made by their authors.