Policy Diffusion: Seven Lessons for Scholars and Practitioners

Abstract

The scholarship on policy diffusion in political science and public administration is extensive. This article provides an introduction to that literature for scholars, students, and practitioners. It offers seven lessons derived from that literature, built from numerous empirical studies and applied to contemporary policy debates. Based on these seven lessons, the authors offer guidance to policy makers and present opportunities for future research to students and scholars of policy diffusion.

The new policy sciences: combining the cognitive science of choice, multiple theories of context, and basic and applied analysis

“…The audience for these theories tend to be academics, and policy process theorists have struggled to translate strategies from their science into practice. There is clear potential to do so (Weible and Cairney 2018;Weible et al 2012;Cairney 2015Cairney , 2016Shipan and Volden 2012), but most efforts are halfhearted and ineffective. For example, writing policy implications in the conclusion of articles-published in academic journals that are inaccessible to policymakers, because they are behind a paywall and an opaque language-guarantees limited impact (deLeon and Weible 2010).…”

How policy instruments are chosen: patterns of decision makers’ choices

“…In this broad picture, processes like policy diffusion and policy transfer should also be considered contextual factors rather than direct drivers. Policy transfer (Dolowitz and Marsh 2000;Bulmer and Padgett 2005) and policy diffusion (Gilardi 2010;Shipan and Volden 2012) can activate mechanisms like lesson-drawing, learning, emulation, inspiration, competition, all of which can clearly influence decision makers' choices, albeit within a specific context since they also interact with others possible contextual factors.…”

Learning Networks Among Swedish Municipalities: Is Sweden a Small World?

“…cratic laboratories (Shipan & Volden, 2012;Volden, 2006) and that they can learn important lessons from each other. Literature on urban policy mobilities (Jacobs, 2012;McCann, 2011) and policy diffusion (Krause, 2011;Lee & van de Meene, 2012) has begun to explore the mechanisms of policy transfer and diffusion between cities.…”