Subsystem politics and policy coherence in development cooperation: Evidence from four EU Member States

Abstract:

This article explores the implementation of policy integration in the area of development cooperation by analyzing in a comparative perspective the intra-country dimension of Policy Coherence for Development (PCD) in four European Union (EU) Member States (United Kingdom, Sweden, The Netherlands and Italy). The current standard explanation of the differences among national policy process and outcomes in this policy area point out the role of politics and institutional design. In contrast to this conventional view, the article highlights the relevance of others factors operating at the level of subsystem politics, namely, paradigm clashes and organizational bargaining. The first section of the article examines the concept of PCD, its rationale and application in the EU. The second section clarifies the main hypothesis, the research design and presents the empirical analysis of the four national cases. Finally, the article concludes with a mixed assessment of the explicative factors behind the implementation of PCD and of the perils of policy integration in development cooperation.