The European Union and New Zealand: converging approaches to the knowledge-based economy?

Abstract

Since 2000, the European Union (EU) and New Zealand (NZ) have adopted strikingly similar policy approaches towards the knowledge economy despite being different and distant political actors. By way of explanation, historical as well as socio-cultural ties between European member states and NZ may be brought forward but they do not constitute satisfactory explanatory factors. Evidence suggests that policy transfer between the EU and NZ is visible not only in the ideational dimension but also as an external source of legitimacy of NZ's political strategies. In this article we discuss the shared normative basis of their broad policy approaches and the orientation of public policy prescriptions. The aim is to seek to develop a more nuanced understanding of policy transfer processes on the international level between two different polities by considering their respective responses to the knowledge-based economy with the emphasis put on voluntary transfer of policy and lesson-drawing.

Keywords:

• Globalization
• knowledge-based economy
• lesson-drawing
• policy convergence
• policy transfer

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This article is based on the research project ‘New Zealand and the EU: approaches to socio-economic change in a globalizing world’. We gratefully recognize the support and funding that was granted for this project from the New Zealand European Union Centres Network.

Notes

When referring to NZ and the EU, we understand the terms to refer to the central government in NZ and the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Council in the EU. This also includes our understanding of the term ‘public actor’, recognizing that this definition is not universally endorsed.

There were exceptions to social democratic support; for instance, the Schröder government in Germany, although launching its own version of Third Wave social democracy, was lukewarm to the Lisbon Strategy and so was the Jospin government in France. On the other hand, some right-of-the-centre governments, such as the Irish, endorsed the initiative.

The structural indicators include 131 different items. In 2004, a decision was taken by the Council to refer to 14 key indicators in all policy documents, while the PGJ refers only to two (investment in R&D and employment rates).