Policy Coordination and Integration: A Research Agenda

Abstract Coordinating and integrating different policies and public sector organizations is a major challenge for practitioners and a continuing topic of interest for researchers . This Viewpoint essay argues that research on this topic needs reorientation to provide better insights for practice and theory of policy making , as well as policy implementation . The authors offer four suggestions on how future research could advance: (1) combining existing conceptual and epistemological approaches more systematically ; (2) complementing case studies and surveys with large‐N analyses and novel research tools and methods ; (3) more systematic analysis of the causal mechanisms in policy coordination and integration ; and (4) more thorough study of the real‐world impact of policy coordination and integration .