ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a revised tool framework that distinguishes between first- and second-order aspects of instruments used in policy mixes and highlights the particular salience of procedural tools within them. The framework is simple to operationalize and thus aids understanding of the complex architecture of mixes, allowing closer examination of the conditions and factors which shape both policy dynamics and performance. The comparative studies of policy regimes typically focus on institutional arrangements used to organize policy subsystems. These studies are typically pitched at the macro level and emphasize how ideas such as attitudes towards societal risk pooling and ideas regarding the role of the state in the health sector, state and nonstate actors in the provision and financing of health care, and institutions shape policy choices. The primary and secondary or supplementary tools used to target problems together form a policy "portfolio".
