Dealing With Policy Nexuses Through Policy Integration: Governance Strategies and the Policy Capacities Needed to Meet UN Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) use indicators in an attempt to foster policy integration and coherence in order to achieve transformative societal change. But the SDGs, like their predecessor Millennium Goals, have not been entirely successful in this effort. Many studies have identified continuing challenges to integrating multiple goals in this way, linked to the complex patterns of interaction between the goals and the nature of the policy systems and subsystems in which they operate. This chapter builds on the policy design literature to argue that the main aim of the SDGs is to reconcile what are otherwise incoherent policy goals and inconsistent policy instruments in a process of policy integration. This process is made more complex in the case of this kind of “super-wicked” problem in which multiple actors face time constraints across multiple policy levels, sectors and venues. It identifies four different techniques for policy integration in such policy nexuses – policy harmonization, mainstreaming, coordination, and institutionalization – and assesses their possibilities for success in the SDG case against what is possible given the nature of the nexus and the capacity of governments to deal with it. The paper contributes to the current literature on policy integration, wicked problems, and the SDGs by further conceptualizing how integrative strategies can be better designed and implemented through capacity-building efforts aimed at developing coordinative relationships within conflict-ridden, multi-actor and multilevel cross-sectoral policy domains.

Citation

Saguin, K. and Howlett, M. (2024), "Dealing With Policy Nexuses Through Policy Integration: Governance Strategies and the Policy Capacities Needed to Meet UN Sustainable Development Goals", Lippi, A. and Tsekos, T.N. (Ed.) Policy Capacity, Design and the Sustainable Development Goals, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 259-279. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80455-686-320241022