Benedetto Lepori (Università della Svizzera Italiana)

“Managing ideational complexity in public policies. The case of public research funding”

Abstract: This paper aims at understanding how ideational complexity, i.e. the lasting and simultaneous presence in a policy domain of alternative policy frames, can be managed without leading to overt conflicts. By leveraging insights from the organizational literature, we suggest that, in most cases, alternative frames are kept apart within distinct policy instruments, while hybrid instruments are established only when required by the nature of the problem. We provide illustrative examples of how these strategies are employed in the case of science policy and, specifically, of instruments providing public funding to researchers. Our findings suggest that a) composite instrument mixes are an important resource to deal with ideational complexity and b) organizational tools, such as establishing multiple implementation agencies, allow to avoid conflicts between policy frames. Accordingly, our analysis provides some advances on the unexplored issue of how the coexistence of multiple policy frames impacts on policy implementation.

Joint with:

Emanuela Reale, Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth of the National Research Council of Italy, Rome, Italy

Marta Cocos, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden