Governmental organizations
Governmental organizations
Governmental organizations hold the primary responsibility for designing and implementing policies. The interactions between organizations, including coordination, distribution of responsibilities, and power dynamics, affect the design and implementation of policies and is a key in explaining the occurrence of coherence or incoherence.
To better understand how governmental organizations affect policy coherence, consider the following aspects:
| Explanatory factors related to governmental organizations: |
|---|
| Coordination mechanisms |
| Mandates and roles |
| Geographical and temporal scales |
| Allocation of resources |
| Political and power dynamics |
Coordination mechanisms
The organizational landscapes in which policies are implemented are complex. Often, multiple ministries and agencies are involved in the governance of one specific policy issue. Moreover, a policy implemented by one governmental organization can affect policies managed by another organization. Therefore, coordination mechanisms across the various governmental organizations are essential to ensure better alignment and coherence between policies. These coordination mechanisms can be formal or informal and are necessary both across different organizations and within different departments of the same organization.
Guiding questions:
- Is effective coordination in place across levels of governance?
- Is effective coordination in place across different governmental organizations that manage specific sectors?
- Is effective cross-border coordination in place to ensure coherent approaches to transboundary policy issues?
- Have coordination mechanisms for specific policy issues been established?
- Are there incentives or obligations for coordination (for example through funding or legal provisions)?
- Can any other potential issues or challenges regarding coordination mechanisms be identified?
Example of coordination mechanisms: Regional Seas Conventions provide an important coordination platform to ensure coherent implementation of EU directives, such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive or the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive, across Member States. At the national level, interministerial steering groups or committees are another mechanism to improve horizontal coherence across sectors (Trubbach, Johannesen and Platjouw, 2025 (forthcoming)).
Also other coordination mechanisms have proven some success. At the EU and regional seas levels, mechanisms such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive/Water Framework Directive Common Implementation Strategy Group, or the regional Great North Sea Basin Initiative, and the North Seas Energy Cooperation are important.
Mandates and roles
Having clear mandates and roles is important for coherent policy implementation. This is even more important where multiple governmental organizations are involved, whose policies influence and interact with each other. Understanding how mandates and responsibilities are divided and designated can help identify causes for incoherence.
Guiding questions:
- Are responsibilities clearly assigned for all policy issues?
- Do governmental organizations have conflicting or overlapping responsibilities? Or are responsibilities clearly assigned across governance levels and between sectoral governmental organizations?
- Do governmental organizations have siloed or restricted mandates, which do not incentivise them to coordinate with others?
- In the event of administrative or political restructuring, is it clear how governance responsibilities have been passed on and which organizations are responsible for what?
- Can any other potential issues or challenges regarding mandates and roles be identified?
Example of mandates and roles: Adaptation to climate change in coastal areas, such as flood protection management, often involves various governmental organizations with overlapping mandates and roles. This can result in uncoordinated policy efforts due to a lack of clarity about which organization is responsible, potentially leading to maladaptation. Assigning a lead authority can be one mechanism to clarify responsibilities and improve coordination (Trubbach, Johannesen and Platjouw, 2025 (forthcoming)).
Geographical and temporal scales
Governmental organizations may be operating at different geographical scales. For example, they may be planning for local areas or the entire country, or they might be implementing policies on land, on the coast or at sea. Different organizations may also operate within different timeframes, from short to long-term, or manage policies with different time horizons (such as different reporting cycles or delivery dates). These different geographical and temporal scales can make it challenging to align different policies.
Guiding questions:
- Do governmental organizations operating at various geographical scales (such as only land; coast or sea) ensure that their policies are aligned?
- Have differences between ecological and administrative boundaries been considered, and is coordination across these boundaries ensured?
- How are tensions between policy issues that require long-term planning, and short-term funding or electoral cycles within governmental organizations addressed?
- Can any other potential issues or challenges regarding scales be identified?
Example of geographical misalignment: In Norway, the coastal zone is managed by municipalities whereas the open waters are managed by national governmental organizations, which can lead to incoherent policies due to limited coordination and alignment.
Allocation of resources
To ensure policy coherence, the responsible governmental organizations need to have sufficient resources, for instance to establish coordination mechanisms and enable thorough policy planning, implementation and evaluation processes.
Guiding questions:
- Is there a continuous and stable resource commitment from the state budget allocated towards various governmental organizations?
- How balanced is the allocation of resources across organizations?
- How are budget constraints being addressed?
- How do budget constraints affect different policy areas?
- Can any other potential issues or challenges regarding resources be identified?
Example of the role of resources: Government austerity measures affecting environmental programs or authorities can negatively impact how other sectoral authorities consider environmental effects in their policies, due to limited support, monitoring or enforcement from environmental authorities (Trubbach, Johannesen and Platjouw, 2025 (forthcoming)).
Political and power dynamics
Different governmental organizations hold different levels of power depending on political interests and priorities within a state or a region. For example, often ministries and agencies responsible for large industries with powerful lobbies have stronger political influence than organizations representing environmental interests. Looking into how these dynamics influence policy-making processes can help understand why (in)coherent policies are adopted or implemented.
Guiding questions:
- Are power imbalances within and between governmental organizations (for example from different sectors) influencing coordination and decision-making processes?
- Are there mechanisms in place for managing dissent? How do power imbalances influence the resolution of conflicts or the handling of dissent?
- Is there sufficient political endorsement and support for the policies?
- On a transboundary level, is there political willingness to coordinate across states?
- Can any other potential issues or challenges political processes be identified?
Example of power dynamics: Despite cross-sectoral and integrated planning processes in place, policy processes can be dominated by economically important and powerful sectors such as fisheries or energy. Also climate change adaptation and mitigation needs and concerns often receive much political willingness to developed concrete policy actions.