Transnational policy transfer: the circulation of ideas, power and development models

ABSTRACT

The study of policy transfer initially focused on transfers and transmissions among developed countries or from developed countries to the developing world. Today the circulation of policy and knowledge has become more dense and complex. The articles in the special issue concentrate on the growing velocity of policy innovations spreading from the developing world to other parts of the developing as well as into developed countries and towards international organisations. The context of international development cooperation has been particularly fertile in the cross-pollination of ideas, models and policy experiments, and the articles in this Special Issue draw deeply on this insight. Using a ‘development lens’ enables the authors to view processes of knowledge diffusion and policy transfer not from the centre, in the ministries of national governments, but from policy perimeters, in cities and local government, among those outside political power in opposition groups and movements, and bottom-up from policy implementers.

KEYWORDS:

• Development cooperation
• international organisation
• policy diffusion
• policy network
• policy transfer
• South-South exchange

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ There is no need to do another literature review of the field; these have been outlined extensively by (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000; Elkins & Simmons, 2005; Evans, 2010; Graham et al., 2013; Hadjiisky, Pal, & Walker 2017; Porto & Pal, 2018).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Diane Stone

Diane Stone is Dean School of Public Policy at the Central European University in Budapest and Vienna. She is a Vice President of the International Public Policy Association and consultant editor of the journal, ‘Policy and Politics’. Her most recent book is The Oxford Handbook of Global Policy and Transnational Administration (with Kim Moloney, Oxford University Press 2019).

Osmany Porto de Oliveira

Osmany Porto de Oliveira is Assistant Professor at the Federal University of São Paulo, in Brazil. He coordinates the Global Platform of International Public Policies. His most recent book is International Policy Diffusion and Participatory Budgeting: Ambassadors of Participation, International Institutions and Transnational Networks, Palgrave McMillan (2017).

Leslie A. Pal

Leslie A. Pal is Dean, College of Public Policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar. His most recent book is Beyond Policy Analysis (with Graeme Auld and Alexandra Mallet, Nelson, 2020).