One problem, two ontologies: How administrative coordination impacts policy coherence

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Abstract
This paper studies the impact of different coordination instruments used by local public administrations in Switzerland on policy coherence. It contributes to the special issue by demonstrating how insights from public management and public policy literatures, often working within distinct ontological frameworks, can effectively be combined to address shared challenges at the intersection of organisational structures and policy outcomes. Empirically, the paper focuses on a mutually relevant topic of state action: the role of administrative coordination in fostering coherent policy implementation. Using data from two recent surveys of local governments in Switzerland, we examine which coordination instruments are employed within a municipality and assess their impact on policy coherence using regression analysis. We find that the more coordination instruments used in a municipality, the higher the policy coherence. Further, while hierarchical, network- and market-based coordination instruments all display a significant positive effect on coherence, network-based instruments are most effective. By integrating theoretical insights and empirical evidence from two distinct and often disconnected debates, our study not only advances the understanding of various intra-organisational coordination instruments and their effects on policy coherence but also contributes to the broader discourse of the special issue. It demonstrates how insights from different academic disciplines can be combined to address shared challenges at the intersection of public management and policy implementation research.

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