Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions V. 20

About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

20 Governance: An Int'l J. Pol'y, Admin, & Institutions 1 (2007)

handle is hein.journals/gvnanlj20 and id is 1 raw text is:

Introduction: Understanding Public Policy through
Its Instruments-From the Nature of Instruments to
the Sociology of Public Policy Instrumentation

PIERRE LASCOUMES* and PATRICK LE GALES**

Public policy instrumentation and its choice of tools and modes of operation
are treated either as a kind of evidence (governing means making
regulations, taxing, entering into contracts, communicating, etc.) or as if
the questions it raises (the properties of instruments, justifications for
choosing them, their applicability, etc.) are part of a rationality of methods
without any autonomous meaning. This paper aims to explain the
significance ofa political sociology approach to public policy instruments
in accounting for processes of public policy change: (1) public policy
instrumentation is a major issue in public policy, since it reveals a (fairly
explicit) theorization of the relationship between the governing and the
governed: every instrument constitutes a condensed form of knowledge
about social control and ways of exercising it; and (2) instruments at work
are not neutral devices: they produce specific effects, independently of the
objective pursued (the aims ascribed to them), which structure public policy
according to their own logic.

Policy instruments, often analyzed as peripherical in the understanding
of public policy, are back in favor. In Europe for instance, the EU White
Paper on Governance (Commission of the European Communities 2001)' is
a remarkable example of the somewhat naive expectations raised by
new or innovative policy instruments of improvements in the effec-
tiveness and democratization of this polity. In the United States, the major
book edited by L. Salamon in 2002, The Tools of Government, A Guide to the
New Governance (Salamon 2002), provides a clear and authoritative
account of the importance of policy instruments in understanding con-
temporary governance. The issue of public policy instruments is still
relatively little explored by academic analysts. However, a tradition of
such research exists in the United States (on instruments of economic
regulation), in the United Kingdom with Christopher Hood's important
work (Hood 1986), and in the Netherlands (Kickert, Klijn, and Koppenjan
1997). Hood's article in this issue surveys the literature and typologies of

*CNRS/CEVIPOF po Paris
**CNRS/CEVIPOF Sciences po Paris
Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, Vol. 20, No. 1,
January 2007 (pp. 1-21).
@ 2007 The Authors
Journal compilation @ 2007 Blackwell Publishing, 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA,
and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK. ISSN 0952-1895