The choice of instruments in environmental policy is an important research question for political science, especially given the fundamental change in the use of environmental policy instruments since the late 1970s in different countries. One important result of the instrument choice and policy design-literature is that in environmental policy practice we cannot find instruments that perfectly represent instrumental textbook’s rationality. There is no technocratic choice of the policy tool that seems to be most appropriate for solving specific policy problems. Rather, we can observe the emergence of specific policy mixes representing the use of combinations of different policy instruments at the same time for reacting to the same problem. The emergence of such policy mixes needs explanation. In my contribution I want to show that by using an analytical framework that called the “framework of self-dynamic policy processes” it is possible to understand why in environmental policy practice we often find policy mixes. Using this framework I focus on the policy process that leads to instrumental combinations (dependent variable) and that is shaped by a number of interacting factors and their self-dynamics as independent variables. These factors are: 1. Institutional settings, 2. Actors, 3. Problem Structure, 4. Availability and knowledge about alternative instrumental options, and 5. situational factors. The usefulness of the suggested analytical framework is demonstrated against selected illustrative cases from Germany’s environmental policy in which we can observe policy mixes constituted by using instrumental combinations.
