Policy coherence within a policy subsystem: The case of Norwegian higher education

Thus far, research on policy coherence has primarily focused (a) on policy integration and (horizontal) policy coordination across policy subsystems, or (b) on policy design and mixes of policy instruments within one policy subsystem (or even one single policy). The first approach implicitly assumes that there is policy coherence within each of the subsystems, while the second approach gives primacy to coherence between instruments, taking coherence between goals for granted. This stands in stark contrast to well established knowledge about dynamics of policy-making. Namely, individual policy initiatives are often a product of a series of compromises between various stakeholders, resulting in multiple, often ambiguous and not necessarily coherent policy goals and a set of various policy instruments attached to each policy initiative. In addition, new policies do not land in a vacuum, but rather come to a policy subsystem already "crowded" with previous initiatives, leading to tensions. Taken together, this means that coherence across different policy initiatives within a single policy subsystem is not a given. Given that such coherence is often seen as desirable, in our analysis we provide a more holistic and nuanced exploration of policy coherence within a single policy subsystem, that of Norwegian higher education. Our analysis focuses on coherence, or lack thereof, of policy outputs and we adopt a three-fold approach to our outcome of interest, focusing on policy coherence between (1) goals of different policies, (2) instruments related to different policies, and (3) goals and instruments within one policy. With regards to conditions of interest, we explore the importance of policy feedback and learning, policy layering, role of policy entrepreneurs and interest groups, as well as importance of government and parliament composition. Our case is the Norwegian higher education policy subsystem and the analysis is based on White Papers submitted to the Norwegian Parliament from 1990 to 2023. The geographical and temporal delimitation of our study provides us with a rich empirical context to explore how various policy and politics related conditions influence the three different dimensions of policy coherence.