Investigating policy coherence through policy strategies: a comparative analysis of Nordic gambling policies

Policy coherence and integration have emerged as central concepts in policy scholarship in order to understand policy implementation. However, the majority of existing literature have applied these concepts into a multi-level context where addressing coherence is given: such as how member states translate doctrines of policy integration from the United Nations (UN) or European Union (EU) at the domestic level. This article extends these concepts by applying their relevance to a domestically oriented policy matter with cross-cutting elements that could impose policy integration, that of gambling policy. Relying on a qualitative deductive content analysis of gambling policy strategies, the article compares policy integration approaches in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. The results exhibit two contrasting approaches to policy coherence. Finland explicitly approaches gambling policy from a coherence perspective and Sweden focus on coordination across sectors. Denmark and Norway rather adopt a sectoral approach in addressing gambling policy objectives. The findings underscores that the concepts are relevant in order to dissect cross-national policy differences in policy implementation and do not need to be connected to multi-level doctrines of addressing policy coherence.