Researchers have argued that political parties in government matter for policy integration reforms, but the way they do so remains somewhat undetermined. In this paper, we contribute to this literature by tackling two interrelated open questions: How does the presence of different political parties in government, which rely on policy programs on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, shape the intensity of policy integration reforms? To what extent do changes in governing political parties affect the political motivation of policy integration reforms and thereby influence the goals and means of these reforms? To explore these questions, we examine a case where institutional capacity is generally favorable to such reforms. Specifically, we compare policy integration reforms in the UK under the New Labor government (1997–2010) with those passed by the Conservative governments (1979–1996), and by the coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats (2010–2014). We find that political parties’ policy positions, and respectively, their political motivations, decisively shape the intensity of policy integration reforms, as well as their substantial goals and means. Furthermore, our results imply that changes in governing parties increase the overall frequency but can reduce the coherence of reform programs over time. These results point to a paradox for the governance of problems through policy integration, whereby the presence of high institutional capacity as provided by a majoritarian system can have negative long-term consequences for policies aiming to solve complex problems.

中文翻译：

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多即少：英国的党派意识形态、政府更迭和政策整合改革

研究人员认为，政府中的政党对政策整合改革很重要，但他们这样做的方式仍然有些不确定。在本文中，我们通过解决两个相互关联的开放性问题来为该文献做出贡献：政府中不同政党的存在，它们依赖于意识形态光谱对立的政策计划，如何影响政策整合改革的强度？执政党的变化在多大程度上影响政策整合改革的政治动机，进而影响这些改革的目标和手段？为了探讨这些问题，我们考察了一个机构能力普遍有利于此类改革的案例。具体来说，我们将英国新工党政府（1997-2010）与保守党政府（1979-1996）以及保守党和自由民主党联合政府（2010-2014）通过的政策整合改革进行了比较。我们发现，政党的政策立场，以及他们各自的政治动机，决定性地决定了政策整合改革的力度，以及他们的实质性目标和手段。此外，我们的结果表明，执政党的变化增加了整体频率，但随着时间的推移会降低改革计划的连贯性。这些结果指出了通过政策整合来治理问题的悖论，