Non‐Governmental Policy Transfer: The Strategies of Independent Policy Institutes

Abstract

Discussions of policy transfer have primarily focused on official actors and networks. The non-governmental mode of policy transfer via foundations, think tanks and non-governmental organizations is a relatively neglected dimension. Accordingly, this paper addresses the role of think tanks in promoting the spread of policy ideas about privatization. The importance of think tanks to policy transfer is their ability to diffuse ideas by (1) acting as a clearing-house for information; (2) their involvement in the advocacy of ideas; (3) their involvement in domestic and transnational policy networks; and (4) their intellectual and scholarly base providing expertise on specialized policy issues. Concepts from comparative public policy and international relations such as "social learning" and "epistemic communities" are used to outline the way think tanks advocate innovative policy ideas. However, not only have think tanks been effective in promoting the transfer of policy ideas, the international spread of think tanks also exhibits organizational transfer.

'Best Places': Interurban Competition, Quality of Life and Popular Media Discourse

“…This "serial reproduction" of policies, as Harvey (1989, p.10) referred to it in the original statement of the entrepreneurial city thesis, tends to foster 'weak competition' (Cox, 1995) and a 'crowding' in the marketplace (Jessop, 1998) that works to the detriment of most cities by fostering a 'treadmill' effect in which every city feels an external pressure to upgrade continually its policies, facilities, amenities and so on to stave off competition and maintain its position in the competitive urban hierarchy. 1 Its continued prevalence, however, makes it an important topic of on-going investigation that also resonates with the wider literature on 'policy transfer' that has emerged in recent years (Dolowitz and Marsh, 2000;Peck and Theodore, 2001;Radaelli, 2000;Stone, 2000). The second concern in the contemporary literature is with the use of 'extra-economic' factors-i.e.…”

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“…In the context of policy transfer, Stone (2000) explores how think tanks promote the spread of policy ideas about privatisation. She highlights BH's emphasis on the common view that learning takes place 'in complex arrangements of state and societal actors in various types of domestic and transnational policy networks and policy communities ' (2000: 60).…”

Diffusion of CCTs from Latin America to Asia: the Philippine 4Ps case

“…Understanding how these 'transfer agents' (Stone, 2000) operate and navigate through transnational networks and political jurisdictions can help to unveil the transfer process in which they are engaged, considering that this process' structure can determine what and how knowledge is shared . As Orenstein notes, as well as International Organizations (IOs) and governments, other non-state actors, primarily think tanks, consultants, and researchers are actively involved in policy diffusion.…”