European Policy Analysis Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016 | Page 184

Integrative Political Strategies—Conceptualizing and Analyzing a New Type of Policy Field management presumes that policymakers act as if they were managers. Such a presumption is problematic since it narrows down the focus (and criteria) of analysis (and evaluations) to certain managerial orientations and practices of policymakers while blocking other forms of strategic orientations and practices that emerge from and within political contexts. To shed light on the boundary work around integrative–strategic policy fields, I draw on conceptualizations of strategy that have been explicitly promoted for the analysis of strategic action in political contexts (Raschke 2002; Raschke and Tils 2013; Tils 2005; 2011). The corresponding political strategy approach can be qualified by three main principles. First, it is actor oriented, which implies that it puts strategic actors and their actions at the core of its interest. Second, it presumes a broad understanding of “the political”, combining aspects of polity, politics, and policy, to understand how actors formulate and implement strategies. Third, it combines rational with interpretive paradigms in understanding the orientations of strategic actors. According to the political strategy perspective, actors attempt to intentionally optimize their action courses within certain subjectively perceived action spaces (Tils 2005, 69). Within the scope of these basic principles, a political strategy is defined as an action construct that relies on situation-transgressing, success-oriented, and dynamic calculations, which refer to goals, means, and contexts (Tils 2005, 25). This definition suggests that actors act strategically when they attempt to achieve their goals by taking account of available means and their action contexts. More specifically, strategic action draws on a certain orientation that combines goals, means, and contexts in such a way that the chances of success are increased. Based on this general understanding, a differentiated conceptual basis has been developed covering various dimensions, such as strategic capacity, strategy formulation, and strategic steering, as well as related subdimensions and elements (Raschke and Tils 2013; Tils 2011). This conceptual basis has been employed to analyze strategic capacities of political parties or strategic steering in party government (Nullmeier and Saretzki 2002; Raschke and Tils 2013; Tils 2011). These applications indicate that the political strategy perspective is neither confined to, nor was it developed for analyzing patterns of policy-field demarcation around IPS. However, given its generic ambitions, some of its basic categories shall be adapted to illuminate how integrative–strategic policy fields are demarcated. More specifically, assuming that the boundary drawing around integrative–strategic policy fields adheres to a strategic, rather than an institutional logic, strategic analysis shall shed light on these patterns of strategic boundary work. Boundary work more generally refers to drawing a line between the inside and the outside (Gieryn 1983; Lamont and Molnár 2002). In relation to policy fields, boundary work is about defining the coverage and scope of a certain policy field vis-à-vis its policy and nonpolicy environments. The definition of a policy field’s boundaries has major strategic implications. By defining what a policy field is all about, actors set the stage for political and policy processes in these fields—and for attaining their individual goals. Boundary work is of