Public Policy Transfer

Contemporary policy making is deeply influenced by the borrowing, transfer and diffusion of ideas and models from other countries, levels of government and supranational institutions. This is the first book to analyze comparatively the micro-dynamics of transfer across regions, contrasting policy fields, multiple levels of governance, and institutional actors. Grounded in original research by specialists in the field, it provides fresh and arresting insights into competition among transfer agents, resistances, local coalitions, translation, and policy learning. This empirical depth informs a reinvigorated and nuanced theoretical framework on global policy transfer processes.

A typical image of the making and administration of policy suggests that it takes place on an incremental basis, involving public servants, their ministers and, to a more limited extent, a variety of interest groups. Yet, much policy making is based on similar policy developed in other jurisdictions and in the major international organizations such as the WTO and the OECD. In other words, significant aspects of nationally developed policies are copied from elsewhere in what is described as a process of policy transfer and learning. Hence, studies of policy transfer have pointed to a distinct limitation in most existing theoretical and empirical explanations as to how policy is made and implemented through their neglect of the role of policy transfer and learning. Moreover, policy transfer is not only a concern of academics, but a growing concern for governments. The latter are concerned to improve the performance of their policy and several have placed a greater, more systematic focus on policy transfer as a means to increasing performance. This book presents a variety of cases from differing national and international contexts that enable a valuable, comparative analysis that is absent from most literature currently available and that suggest a number of exciting research directions with implications for policy making, transference and implementation in the future.

This book investigates the increasing circulation and transfer of public policy ideas between the UK, US and Australia since the 1990s. It argues that the upsurge in policy transfer amongst and between these states can be explained by a structural and shared commitment between these states to a distinctive institutional ideology of policy-making. This ideology, it is claimed, is partly a product of the historical proximity of ‘Anglosphere’ states, and in recent years can be traced through the evolution of New Public Management principles through to Third Way communitarianism.

This important Handbook brings together preeminent international scholars, sharing their comparative and international perspectives on the topic. Their original contributions cover the key issues and questions around policy transfer, diffusion and circulation research. Altogether, chapters illuminate how rich and provocative the current debate on the interpretation of how public policies travels is and the vibrancy of the area’s research within the broad planet of public policy analysis.

In an increasingly global community of researchers and practitioners, new technologies and communication means have made the transfer of policies from one country or region to another progressively more prevalent. There has been a lot of attention in the field of public administration paid to policy transfer and institutional transplantation. This book aims to create a better understanding of such transfers in the water management sector. These include the adoption of modern water management concepts, such as integrated water resources management and forms of water governance, which are strongly promoted and sometimes also imposed by various international organizations. Transfers also occur within the scope of development aid or for the purpose of creating business opportunities. In addition, many research organisations, consultancies and governmental agencies are involved in cross-border work. The purpose of this book is therefore to present practical examples of the transfer of modern water management from one locality to another and to critically discuss the transferability of policy and governance concepts by analysing the contextual needs and factors. Case studies are included from North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It is argued that in many cases context matters in water management and that there is no panacea or universal concept that can be applied to all countries or regions with different political, economic, cultural and technological contexts. Yet it is also shown that some countries are facing pressing and similar water management issues that cut across national borders, and hence the transfer of knowledge may be beneficial.

The world of public policy is becoming increasingly small due to dramatic changes in global communications, political and economic institutional structures, and to nation states themselves. This book evaluates the implications of these changes and challenges for both the study and the practice of policy transfer, and provides a unique understanding of the relationship between systemic globalizing forces and the increasing scope and intensity of policy transfer activity. It provides: an explanation of policy transfer as a process of organizational learning; an insight into how and why such processes are studied by policy scientists; an evaluation of its use by policy practitioners; and the first published collection of policy transfer case studies between developed countries, from developed to developing countries, and from developing countries.

Policy-making is more globally connected than ever before. Policy ideas, experiences and expertise circulate with great speed and over great distances. But who is involved in moving policy, how do they do it, and through which arenas? This book examines the work involved in policy circulation. As the first genuinely interdisciplinary collection on policy circulation, the book showcases theoretical approaches from across the social sciences—including policy diffusion, transfer and mobility—and offers empirical perspectives from across the world.

This new book presents a clear conceptual framework for understanding the transfer of policy ideas between EU states, together with an empirical study of regulatory change within European utilities. Policy transfer is a new instrument for understanding EU policy-making. This volume shows how the nature of institutions, interdependence between trans-national and national jurisdictions and social systems, relate policy actors across geographical boundaries, identifying four basic types of EU policy transfer and learning: ‘uploading’– how member states compete to shape the EU agenda in line with their own institutional arrangements and policy preferences ‘downloading’– how states adapt to changing EU incentives and constraints ‘socialization’ – how EU policy norms are internalized in the belief systems of domestic actors ‘information exchange’ between national actors in the course of EU interactions leading to a horizontal diffusion of policy ideas. The authors use an institutionalist perspective to show how these forms of policy transfer operate across the diverse systems of governance found across the EU. Policy Transfer in European Union Governance will be of great interest to students and scholars of European Union politics and policy, comparative public policy and political economy.