Policy coherence for sustainable development

This research paper proposes a political analytical framework to understand policy coherence for sustainable development, moving beyond technocratic views to examine how ideas, institutions, and interests (the 'three I’s') influence policy outcomes.

• Current conceptualizations of policy coherence for sustainable development are often too technocratic, focusing on intra-governmental processes and institutional interactions while ignoring political drivers like ideologies and vested interests.
• The paper introduces an analytical framework based on comparative politics that uses 'the three I’s'—ideas, institutions, and interests—to hypothesize how policy coherence is influenced at various policy stages and which actors' interests are served by the pursuit or avoidance of coherence.
• The proposed framework can be applied to empirical data at national or global levels, as demonstrated by the author's application of the framework to the relationship between the Paris Agreement and Agenda 2030 (including the Sustainable Development Goals).

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2022). Policy coherence for sustainable development. https://www.sei.org/publications/policy-coherence-for-sustainable-development/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Policy coherence for sustainable development. 2022. https://www.sei.org/publications/policy-coherence-for-sustainable-development/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Policy coherence for sustainable development |date=29 November 2022 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/policy-coherence-for-sustainable-development/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2022policy, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Policy coherence for sustainable development}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2022}, month = nov, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/policy-coherence-for-sustainable-development/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }