Transfer and translation of policy

Abstract

The past two decades have seen a wealth of papers on policy diffusion and policy transfer. In the first half, this paper reviews some of the trends in the literature by looking backwards to the political science diffusion literature, and forwards to the expanding multi-disciplinary social science literatures on policy 'learning', 'mobilities' and 'translation' which qualify many of the rationalist assumptions of the early diffusion/transfer literatures. These studies stress the complexity of context that modifies exports of policy and the need for interpretation or experimentalism in the assemblage of policy. The second half of the paper focuses on role of international organisations and non-state actors in transnational transfer in the spread of norms, standard setting and development of professional communities or networks that promote harmonisation and policy coordination. The 'soft' transfer of ideas and information via networks whether they be personal, professional or electronic is rapid and frequent. It is rather more infrequent to see such ideas structure governance and become institutionalised. Knowledge transfer is more extensive than policy transfer.

Scaling up and out as a Pathway for Food System Transitions

“…Such multiplicity is acknowledged in more recent work influenced by social constructivism [47]. From this perspective a longer list of potential transfer agents still will not capture the process's complexity if it assumes a linear process passing knowledge from sender to recipient [48][49][50]. This is challenged by mobility perspectives which recognize a fluid process with agents' roles interacting and morphing [48][49][50].…”

“…has been mooted since Dolowitz and Marsh's framework, but answers focus on whether transfers are coerced or voluntary [47]. This offers limited parameters for understanding what motivates transfers, and over-simplifies factors driving policy making [48,49]. Considering the appeal of scaling reveals a complexity of reasons for transfers, suggesting a need to consider different actors' motivations and how these influence outcomes.…”

Distorted policy transfer? South Korea’s adaptation of UK social enterprise policy

“…Within the field of public policy, the policy transfer framework has made considerable progress in analyzing the way that this kind of interest may result in the borrowing of policies (e.g., Marsh, 1996, 2000;Evans and Davies, 1999;, 2004Evans, 2009;Marsh and Sharman, 2009;Benson and Jordan, 2011). Although policy transfer research has long stressed hybridization (Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996), a criticism is that there is a tendency in the literature to privilege the role of government over other actors or stakeholders (Peck, 2011;McCann and Ward, 2012;Stone, 2012). Still, there are studies which emphasize the role of domestic policy actors in embedding transferred policies in their new contexts (Stone, 2001;Ladi, 2005Ladi, , 2011).…”

“…Then, if something is found which needs to be changed to meet the specific contexts of the borrower, the policy is modified accordingly. In this sense, democratic transfer is a process of policy indigenization over the long-term (Stone, 2012). This process of policy change takes time because a borrower should adjust policy transferred from overseas with its domestic stakeholders (Ladi, 2011).…”

“…In this sense the policy transfer literature moved on from policy diffusion's emphasis on patterns of adoption through focusing on agency and the 'domestic and international circumstances that are likely to bring about policy transfer' (Evans, 2009: 243). Still, a tendency to focus on government to government exchanges to the detriment of markets and networks has been identified (Peck, 2011, McCann andWard, 2012;Stone, 2012).…”