European Policy Analysis Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016 | Page 187

European Policy Analysis

to several functional expectations, which
are in turn based on various (normative)
models of policymaking. Second, resulting
from this functional bias, empirical
research tends to focus on assessing the
performance of IPS rather than capturing
what occurs in and around IPS. Based on
overly ambitious standards that reflect
the ascribed functions of IPS, several
rather skeptical outlooks have emerged,
certifying the overall failure of IPS.

Following the critical review, I have
proposed an understanding of IPS as a new,
“reflexive” type of policy field, emerging
from two more recent movements in the
policy system. These movements counter
two trends that have dominated modern
policy systems—the integration of policies
as a countermovement to the continued
differentiation of the policy system on
the one hand, and the turn to strategy as
a flexible form of policy boundary work
that contrasts with the pattern of firm
institutionalization on the other hand.
To analyze the form and functioning
of these new types of policy fields and
grasp the peculiarities of integrative–
strategic policymaking, I have suggested
perceiving integration and strategy as the
central terms of analysis and elaborated
the analytical repertoires that come with
both terms. I argue that the analytical
complexity of these concepts should be
taken seriously to acquire differentiated
empirical understandings of IPS, which
can serve as basis for further inquiries on
the function and performance of IPS in
contemporary policy systems.

The conceptual propositions I
make in this paper contribute to the study
of IPS and contemporary policymaking
in three ways. First, understanding IPS
in terms of a new type of policy field
comes with a fresh perspective on these

increasingly
important
phenomena
of current policymaking. It opens the
view for a more analytical (and less
instrumental) understanding of IPS, and
it paves the way for a more systematic,
theoretical embedding of IPS in policy
theory. Second, highlighting two
fundamental dimensions of policy-field
formation (i.e., genesis and delineation),
adds to the conceptualization of policy
fields as a relevant though neglected object
of policy research in general. In particular,
the distinction among ideal types of
policy fields contributes to the typological
discussion on the issue (Blätte 2015). Third,
I have outlined a differentiated analytics
to capture the conceptual cornerstones of
the new type of policy field, namely policy
integration and political strategy. The
analytics of policy integration provides a
basis for a more nuanced understanding
of the constitution of complex policy
arrangements that form IPS. It emphasizes
and allows for a differentiated inquiry
about both the “what” (elements) and the
“how” (modes) of policy integration. The
analytics of political strategy serves as a
basis for improving the knowledge about
the boundary work that is performed in
and around IPS. Specifically, it enables an
analysis of the political (polity, politics,
and policy) conditions and orientations
of policy actors working for or against
the creation of (as well as within)
IPS. Taken together, an integrationand strategy-oriented policy analysis
provides the grounds for a finer-grained
comprehension of IPS as policy fields and
the underlying mechanisms that shape the
emergence of these phenomena.

Viewing IPS in terms of a new type
of integrative–strategic policy field has
several implications for future theoretical
and empirical work, as well as policy

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