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Policy scholars generally agree that greater coherence of policies is desirable, but the concept is under-theorized and has received little empirical examination. This research examines the policy coherence of 18 policy domains and considers institutional factors that affect variation among them. There is considerable variation in coherence among substantive, regional, and identity-based policy domains. Greater degrees of policy coherence exist for policy domains that have dominant congressional committees or have more involvement of lead federal agencies. These findings extend what policy scholars know about policy subsystems in American policymaking to consideration of the coherence of policy domains.
KEY WORDS: policy coherence, policy domain, policy subsystem
Introduction
A casual observer of the popular and academic characterizations of public policy could easily conclude that policymaking institutions in the United States are incapable of producing coherent policies. Discussions of policy topics almost inevitably engender complaints about inconsistencies in policies within a given policy area. These inconsistencies foster what implementation scholars have long identified as a source of implementation gaps (see Goggin et alv 1990; Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1983). Yet, more is at stake than implementation success, as policy coherence also relates to the consistency with which policy intentions are signaled. As pointed out by Schneider and Ingram (1997), a lack of policy coherence sends confusing messages to potential policy targets-children, the elderly, women, and so on-about the importance of their concerns. As such, policy coherence and policy politics are intertwined.
Fragmentation of policy systems fosters the type of disjointed policymaking that is common to American politics (see Baumgartner & Jones, 1993, pp. 235-251). But, pointing out that fragmentation of policy systems undermines policy coherence tells us little about what constitutes coherence or the ways with which institutional dislocations contribute to it. May et al. (2005) suggest that the array of interests and issues among different components of a given policy area is important to consider. They argue coherence is undermined when these pull in different directions and enhanced when they are more or less in accord. Their empirical understanding of this, however, is limited to the obscure case of Arctic policy for which they only have limited measures of key attributes.
We seek to extend this understanding of policy coherence by assessing the coherence of different policy...