Researchers in public policy and public administration agree that policy integration is a process. Nevertheless, scholars have given limited attention to political aspects that facilitate or impede integration. This paper aims at filling that gap, by looking at how different theories of the policy process can help in explaining the process of policy integration as shaped by policy subsystems. By building on insights from theories of the policy process, we develop pathways regarding adoption and implementation in policy integration that account for the politicization and the role of actors and subsystems in the policy process. Our main argument is that policy integration is in permanent political tension with the sectoral logic of policymaking, which predominantly happens between actors in subsystems. Policy integration is, thus, not a single moment when those tensions are solved once and for all, but a political process that requires deliberate efforts to overcome the pull toward sector-specific problem definition, policymaking, implementation, and evaluation.

公共政策和公共行政研究人员一致认为，政策整合是一个过程。然而，学者们对促进或阻碍一体化的政治方面关注有限。本文旨在通过研究不同的政策过程理论如何帮助解释由政策子系统形成的政策整合过程来填补这一空白。通过建立政策过程理论的见解，我们开发了政策整合中采用和实施的途径，解释了政治化以及政策过程中参与者和子系统的作用。我们的主要论点是，政策整合与政策制定的部门逻辑处于永久的政治紧张状态，这主要发生在子系统的参与者之间。因此，政策整合并不是一劳永逸地解决这些紧张局势的单一时刻，而是一个需要刻意努力克服对特定部门问题定义、政策制定、实施和评估的影响的政治进程。