Compared to What? The Multiple Meanings of Comparative Policy Analysis

Abstract

What is comparative public policy? How can it contribute to better public policy? These questions seem fundamental to the mission of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. Some scholars have addressed the first question, which usually places comparative policy analysis in an institutional context, emphasizing comparisons across countries. However, fewer scholars have addressed the second, which lies at the heart of the comparative enterprise. As a result, the boundaries of this analytic effort are unclear and attempts to evaluate work that is defined as “comparative” are sometimes controversial. In this essay, we first sketch the history of the development of policy analysis in the United States. This historical review provides a sense of how comparative analysis fits into the development of the field, how the field has ignored some opportunities to think about comparative analysis, and offers some insight into how comparative policy analysis can contribute to better public policy. It then turns to possible avenues for comparison to identify the opportunities and limitations of the comparative approach.

Keywords:

• comparative public policy
• policy process
• comparative analysis
• comparison
• policy transfer

Notes

1. The review only included items published as articles and only included symposia introductions if they were published in the article section. It is based on a review of abstracts with follow-up reading of the articles if the content was not clear. The classification into theory (and other), single-country, and multi-country articles involved some discretion. For example, articles that focused on international organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development or the European Union were classified as multi-country. Single-country articles included a few that made sub-national comparisons and one that compared policy issues.

2. Because the formal field called “policy analysis” emerged from US experience, we are using that experience to illustrate possibilities that might have emerged earlier as “comparative analysis”.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Beryl A. Radin

Beryl A. Radin is a professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. She is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and past president of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (1995–1996). She received the 2014 International Research Society for Public Management Routledge Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Public Management Research, the John Gaus Award from the American Political Science Association in 2012, and the H. George Frederickson Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Public Management Research Association in 2009. She was the recipient of the 2002 Donald Stone Award given by the American Society for Public Administration’s section on intergovernmental management to recognize a scholar's distinguished record.

David L. Weimer

David L. Weimer is the Edwin E. Witte Professor of Political Economy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and past president of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (2006) and the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis (2013).

Both authors have written extensively on the development of the public policy field.