Policy Transfer

A Framework for Analyzing a Variety of Processes

A large number of terms are used to qualify processes of transfer: policy transfer, lesson drawing, legal transplantation, policy learning, and institutional transfer, to name a few. If each of these expressions represents a particular analytical approach, each emphasizing different institutional issues, actors, or various degrees of obligations, they all aim to describe the same phenomenon and participate in the understanding of various fields of governance. From these different perspectives it is possible to determine some elements of definition, each of which are potential research subjects.

First, it is essential not to reduce policy transfer only to ideas or political objectives, but to also to consider the exchange of instruments, practices, and programs of governance between “exporter” and “importer” systems.

Second, the dynamics of transfer cover several forms: direct and total transfer of a model, a process of opening up to an external idea, and hybridization of various models.

Third, policy transfers can be voluntary, forced, or totally imposed. These different mechanisms of legal obligation or imposition are essential to the understanding of such processes.

Finally, the link between policy transfer and success or failure represents an important dimension. Taking into account the cases where the transfer of solutions or models failed also enables one to reveal the transfer mechanisms by focusing particularly upon factors that facilitate or block transfer.

One of the main interests of this concept is certainly its flexibility, which allows research to describe a wide range of phenomena. Through analyzing the various degrees and methods of transfer, this concept enables one to understand the mixtures present in certain models. Concerning the question of mechanisms of obligation, it can also establish a continuum between cases where the model is wanted and cases where the model is imposed from outside.

The Agents: Policy Transfer and Organizational Analysis

Understanding the processes of policy transfer means retracing the logical progression (cognitive interactions) and the social progression (social interactions) of recipes exchange and policy-making ideas. The objective is to question the manner in which exchanges or the circulation of some political solutions occurs between different systems or levels of action.

The study of actors, their strategies, and their resources provides an essential tool of understanding. Agents participate in processes of construction, legitimation, and distribution, which lie at the origin of the dynamics of import-export. In the case of social policies transfer between the United States and Great Britain (in the mid-1980s), several types of facilitating factors were identified. If the existence of a common [Page 706]language and a shared ideology constitute facilitating factors, they are not sufficient to explain the dynamics of exchange. Personal relations and the essential role played by some think tanks or policy entrepreneurs showed the importance of social interactions.

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