The design roots of policy problems: unpacking the role of procedural tools in design fitness and resilience

While policy design scholars have made significant conceptual and empirical advances in identifying and evaluating procedural tools, there has been a little focus on understanding how they interact with the more traditional “substantive” elements of a policy mix and their critical functions in policy mix designs. As a result, there is uncertainty about how procedural tools affect policy effectiveness—at adoption or over time. To address this gap, we propose a framework for deconstructing policy mix designs to examine how procedural tools interact with substantive tools in ways that either contribute to or undermine design “fitness” and “resilience.” The framework's diagnostic utility is illustrated by its application to unpack healthcare arrangements in Singapore and India, which reveals design “fault lines” that policy researchers and practitioners need to be aware of. We conclude by offering research directions for further investigating the role of procedural tools in shaping policy dynamics and outcomes.