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Introduction
Policy integration concerns the management of cross-cutting issues that transcend the boundaries of established policy fields, and which do not correspond to the institutional responsibilities of individual government departments (Meijers and Stead, 2004). Integrated policymaking refers to both horizontal sectoral integration (between different departments at the same level of government) and vertical inter-governmental integration (between different levels of government). With regard to horizontal integration, a number of synonyms can be found in the literature: coherent policymaking (OECD, 1996), policy coordination (Alter and Hage, 1993; Peters, 1998), holistic government, joined-up government or whole-of-government approach (Hood, 2005). Apart from the different terminology, this theme is a well-known problem in policy studies since the seminal works on implementation (see, for example, Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973). Recently the issue of horizontal government came back at the center of the stage as a consequence of the effects of the reforms associated to the New Public Management and of the emergence of new policy areas with a strong cross-cutting dimension, such as environmental and social problems (Peters, 2006; Lanzalaco, 2011). However, as research on specific cross-cutting policy issues, such as environmental policy integration or gender mainstreaming, have demonstrated there are still many open theoretical and practical questions about the implementation of integrated policymaking, and the diffusion of new policy ideas and policy tools does not always guarantee the desired outcomes (Walby, 2005; Jordan and Lenschow, 2010).
Since the end of the 1990s, the issue of coherent policymaking has been a regular topic also in development cooperation policy. Under the term 'Policy Coherence for Development' (PCD) the government of OECD (2005) countries were asked to ensure that the objectives and results of their development policies were not undermined by other policies of the government. This end should have been assured by adopting appropriate policy tools to improve horizontal integration between aid policies and non-aid policies of donor countries. However, the policy situation in development cooperation is peculiar in that the beneficiaries or stakeholders do not constitute a domestic constituency in donor countries: since beneficiaries are located in a foreign country, the task of achieving policy coherence is particularly challenging (Hydén, 1999). Indeed, usually political groups advocating the interests of those segments of society presenting government with cross-cutting policy issues can function...