Pike, BrigidCoherent Policy Expert GroupMuscat, Richard2012-11-082012-11-082012-03978-92-871-7345-4http://hdl.handle.net/10147/251397According to the Oxford English Dictionary, coherence means “the action or fact of cleaving or sticking together”, while coherency means “the quality of being coherent or hanging together in any respect” – one is an action; the other is a quality. In this chapter, “coherence” is used when referring to policy coherence as a policy tool, because it connotes a process of becoming more, or less, coherent; “coherency” is used for the goal, the final state to be achieved by implementing the policy coherence instrument, a set of fully coherent policies. Following the characterisation of “policy coherence” given in the previous chapter, a more formal definition of the concept is now proposed. Policy coherence refers to the extent to which different public policies complement or support each other. At best, policy coherence creates synergies between different public policies; it leverages capacity to realise a common policy goal. At a minimum, it ensures that different policies do not undermine one another or cancel each other out. A consequence of this layered definition (layered in that there are gradations, namely, ever greater degrees of coherence) is that policy coherence depends on alignment and consistency not only across policies directly related to a specific goal or set of goals, but also across other unrelated policies that may have an impact on directly related policies. A further consequence is that coherence at different levels, from international to local, also needs to be considered.enPOLICY FORMULATIONSUBSTANCE MISUSEPOLICY MAKERCOHERENCEBook Chapter