Policy transfer and role of policy entrepreneur in international aid: exploring international development cases of Korea and Vietnam

ABSTRACT

This paper looks at how an innovative policy comes to be transferred to another country and be successfully implemented. We explore three key dimensions (time, location, and people) in policy transfer studies using two cases of international aid (Saemaul Undong and e-Government projects). Utilizing a case study method, this paper upholds the predominant role of the policy entrepreneur over the environment (different time frame and different social, political, economic systems). The stakeholder analysis shows that policy entrepreneur’s role is critical in making policy transfer successful. In part, this argument is in line with previous “Advocacy Networks” studies, such as that of Keck and Sikkink (1998), highlighted the importance of policy entrepreneurs being able to navigate in the networks of international development. This paper aims to contribute to the literature by applying Dolowitz and Marsh’s policy transfer framework in the international aid context and calls for further empirical research employing the network analysis method.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy transfer
• diffusion of innovation
• international aid
• Saemaul Undong
• e-Government
• policy evaluation

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this manuscript were presented at SIRC 2015 and SECOPA 2015 and the authors are grateful for the helpful comments. Sungsoo Hwang thanks Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, & Department of Political Science, George Washington University for providing the venue for a visiting scholar to complete this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sungsoo Hwang is an associate professor at the Department of Public Administration & Park School of Policy and Saemaul, Yeungnam University, Korea. He received his PhD in public affairs from the University of Pittsburgh. He formerly worked at Grand Valley State University and George Washington University as a visiting scholar. He conducts research in the areas of governance and policy analysis with an emphasis on utilizing information technology. He has published information technology and governance related articles in several venues including Government Information Quarterly and International Review of Public Administration.

Hyojin Song is a senior researcher at the Changwon Research Institute, Korea. She received her PhD in public administration from the University of Seoul, Korea. She formerly worked at the University of Seoul as a research professor, and at the University of New Mexico as a visiting scholar. Her research interests are in e-government, IT ODA, digital literacy, political participation and local governance. Her work has appeared in journals such as Korean Public Administration Review and Korean Policy Studies Review.

ORCID

Sungsoo Hwang http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0950-171X

Hyojin Song http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8447-960X

Notes

1. Afghanistan is ranked first; Myanmar is ranked third among Asian countries.

2. Since Marsh and Sharman’s study in 2009, the number of studies examining policy transfers to developing countries has grown, particularly to the transition countries of Europe and Latin America. However, we contribute to the literature, looking at a country in East Asia in the context of international aid programs.

3. Of course, there is a huge body of literature studying the policy change, & policy process, such as the Advocacy Coalition Framework, Multiple Streams, and Policy Networks. These works are partly overlapping, but we focus on policy transfer here as ‘policy transfer’ is uniquely utilized as both dependent and independent variables for successful implementation.

4. Social innovation is “A novel solution to a social problem that is more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions” (Phills, Deiglmeier, and Miller 2008, 38).

5. IT ODA and e-Government ODA are very hard to separate, although they are not exactly the same things. Thus, we use these terms rather loosely in this paper.

6. Some informal interviews were done during the course of each author’s respective involvement in a few projects and consulting activities. The data collection were, in part, supported by Gallery HK.

7. However, they often do not have the power and vision required to reengineer the political and administrative systems.

8. As a small example, the trade information system imported from Korea is sometimes intentionally brought to a halt at the local offices for a time due to culturally embedded ‘corruption’.

9. Development aid differs from the actions of typical Transnational Advocacy Networks, whose purpose is to promote issues such as human rights. These issues are more conducive to united campaigning, whereas in the case of development aid, it is more difficult to coordinate the stakeholders in the advocacy network.

10. Stone (2004)’s distinction on ‘what’: the importance of the ‘softer’ side of policy transfer contents, such as ideas, ideologies, attitudes, concepts that are somewhat invisibly attached to the hard side of policy transfer such as policy goals, structure, instruments, administrative techniques.