Understanding the transfer of policy failure: bricolage, experimentalism and translation

Abstract

A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the 'permanent WRAP URL' above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. AbstractThis article re-assesses some of the literature on policy transfer and policy diffusion in light of ideas as to what constitutes failure, partial failure or limited success. First, the article looks at imperfect, incomplete or uninformed transfer processes as one locus of policy failures. Second, it addresses the concept of 'negative lesson-drawing' as well as the role of interlocutors who complicate policy transfer processes between A and B. Third, the idea of 'transfer' as a neat linear transmission of an intact policy approach or tool is criticised by drawing attention to the extensiveness of hybridity, synthesis, adaptation and 'localisation'. Finally, the article concludes that policy 'translation' is a better conceptual framework for comprehending and valorising the learning and policy innovations that come with the trial and error inherent in policy-making. This entails an abandonment of perceptions of one-way linear processes of country 'A' sending policy to 'B' that characterises many policy transfer approaches to a stronger analytical focus on importing countries that translate policies.

The introduction of public–private partnerships in the Netherlands as a case of institutional bricolage: The evolution of an Anglo‐Saxon transplant in a Rhineland context

“…We conclude that the case shows that PPP innovation in the Netherlands can indeed be seen as a process of gradual but significant institutional transformation in which a foreign idea becomes local practice (Stone ). The theoretical contribution of this study is that it has infused the existing debate on the nature of policy transfer and institutional transplantation with findings regarding the process of bricolage as a non‐linear process in which negotiation and learning go hand‐in‐hand with conflict and the exercise of power, resulting in a delicate equilibrium of conditions for mutual adaptation, without excluding potential shifts towards either displacement or elimination of the transplant.…”

“…in one time and/or place is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements and institutions in another time and/or place’. The concept has over time been both empirically and theoretically expanded and become commonly recognized in the political and policy sciences (Evans and Davies ; Dolowitz and Marsh ; Lodge ; James and Lodge ; Stone ; Evans ; Benson and Jordan ; Marsden and Stead ). Although the usefulness of the concept is undisputed in demonstrating the administrative process of who learns how and when from whom abroad, about what is good practice or a promising policy model or programme, doubts have emerged regarding the analytical clarity of the concept on a number of counts.…”

“…It is, for instance, hard to distinguish policy transfer from other types of policy‐making (James and Lodge ; Benson and Jordan ). The concept of policy transfer takes insufficiently into account how adopting policy actors remould and retranslate concepts and ideas (Stone ). Also, the concept tends to downplay the complexity and impact of path‐dependent institutional traditions and dominant practices among policy actors on the way in which transplants are, or are not, transferred and reshaped (Knill ; de Jong et al 2002; Lodge ).…”

“…It is, for instance, hard to distinguish policy transfer from other types of policy-making (James and Lodge 2003;Benson and Jordan 2011). The concept of policy transfer takes insufficiently into account how adopting policy actors remould and retranslate concepts and ideas (Stone 2017).…”

New Frontiers and Directions in Policy Transfer, Diffusion and Circulation Research: Agents, Spaces, Resistance, and Translations

“…Latour argues that within diffusion processes, actors provide interpretations of facts according to their interests, producing different narratives. Diane Stone (2017) highlights the role of governmental, non-governmental and private actors as intermediaries. The translation issue was brought to the debate by the discussion on policy mobilities (Peck, 2011), taking into account its mutation, as well as by the anthropologists' concern about public policies moving and meanings (Clarke et al, 2015).…”