Comparative Public Policy: Origins, Themes, New Directions

Abstract

Comparative public policy combines theories of the policy process with the study of political systems and specific issue areas. Yet, some ambiguity surrounds what distinguishes the comparative approach from other perspectives on public policy. This review brings greater clarity to the comparative policy project by emphasizing the need to be attentive to similarities and differences regarding the institutional contexts in which policymaking takes place. This attention is necessary to avoid “forcing a fit” between the empirical reality and theories and frameworks designed with specific institutional configurations in mind. While forced fit posed problems for past research, recent theoretical advancements have been devised to facilitate comparison across dissimilar institutional settings. The following discussion highlights amendments to established approaches intended to deal with problems of comparison and identifies promising new perspectives from which comparative analysis may be conducted. The latest wave of comparative policy scholarship, having accounted for institutional variation, looks beyond institutions to policy discourses in order to explain how ideas, norms, and political culture affect how policy actors maneuver within, maintain, or change the institutional environment in which they operate.

Science and technology for the people? On the framing of innovation in policy discourses in India and in EU

“…In policy studies literature, it is well established that the study of public policy should be comparative [Wilder, 2017;Dodds, 2012;Heidenheimer, Heclo and Adams, 1975]. The attempt here is to draw reasonable conclusions on diverse technopolitical cultures [Felt, Fochler and Winkler, 2010] with examples of two 2 We just mention here the most obvious one: the economic situations and outlooks.…”

“…Shared imaginaries or narratives are particularly visible in policy documents, where they are invoked to frame relevant issues and ultimately legitimise policy action, based on a specific idea of desirable future. Furthermore, comparing EU and India allows to extend our gaze beyond North America and Europe: non-western-centred points of view are lacking in scientific literature on policy-making [Wilder, 2017]. They are very useful to understand, through comparison, strongly culture-dependent ideas like innovation and knowledge policies, and the shape that citizens' participation takes in different contexts.…”

A Thirty State Analysis of Teacher Supervision and Evaluation Systems in the ESSA Era

“…The influence of state political culture on policy development waxed and waned throughout the second half of the 20th century, but again began to take more of a back seat when A Nation at Risk was published. However, even with the passage and implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2002), which arguably brought about some of the greatest federal control over educational practices, in theory state political culture research and analysis still offers important insights into the values, beliefs, and assumptions of stakeholders at the state level (Welch, 1993).…”

Cognitive and Institutional Determinants of Public Policy Changes: A Comparative Analysis of Brazil and Chile

“…The cognitive and normative dimension has gained relevance in recent years due to the influence of the constructivist paradigm on public‐policy (Wilder, 2017), which has led to a prolific field engaged in discourse and narrative to explain the change. Several concepts have been proposed to support the explanatory power of ideas—“Referential” (Jobert & Muller, 1987), “Paradigm” (Hall, 1993; Kuhn, 1962; Surel, 1995, 1997), “Social Learning” (Hall, 1993; Heclo, 1974; Rose, 1993), “Recit” (Radaelli, 2000), “Discourse” (Schmidt, 2002, 2008), and “Frames” (Fisher, 2003).…”