David P. Dolowitz

Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy‐Making

In recent years there has been a growing body of literature within political science and international studies that directly and indirectly uses, discusses and analyzes the processes involved in lesson-drawing, policy convergence, policy diffusion and policy transfer. While the terminology and focus often vary, all of these studies are concerned with a similar process in which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political setting (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political setting. Given that this is a growing phenomenon, it is something that anyone studying public policy needs to consider. As such, this article is divided into four major sections. The first section briefly considers the extent of, and reasons for, the growth of policy transfer. The second section then outlines a framework for the analysis of transfer. From here a third section presents a continuum for distinguishing between different types of policy transfer. Finally, the last section addresses the relationship between policy transfer and policy “failure.”

Perspectives on the Use of Green Infrastructure for Stormwater Management in Cleveland and Milwaukee

Green infrastructure is a general term referring to the management of landscapes in ways that generate human and ecosystem benefits. Many municipalities have begun to utilize green infrastructure in efforts to meet stormwater management goals. This study examines challenges to integrating gray and green infrastructure for stormwater management, informed by interviews with practitioners in Cleveland, OH and Milwaukee WI. Green infrastructure in these cities is utilized under conditions of extreme fiscal austerity and its use presents opportunities to connect stormwater management with urban revitalization and economic recovery while planning for the effects of negative- or zero-population growth. In this context, specific challenges in capturing the multiple benefits of green infrastructure exist because the projects required to meet federally mandated stormwater management targets and the needs of urban redevelopment frequently differ in scale and location.

The Future of Policy Transfer Research

The fact that three contributions address the state of policy transfer research and, to an extent, our contribution to it, suggests that we emphasised, although we did not ‘discover’, an important aspect of contemporary policy making. Here, we shall briefly discuss some of the issues about our work raised in these contributions before turning to our main concern, a focus upon some of the ways in which policy transfer research might usefully develop.

Considerations of the Obstacles and Opportunities to Formalizing Cross-National Policy Transfer to the United States: A Case Study of the Transfer of Urban Environmental and Planning Policies from Germany

Not enough has been written about the import, adaptation, and application of urban environmental and planning policies from abroad into the United States. Even less has been written about the voluntary cross-national transfer and application of environmental policies by American subnational actors and institutions. It is our intent to begin redressing this by discussing the transfer of urban environmental and planning policies from Germany to the United States during the early part of the 21st century. This discussion is informed by data drawn from governmental reports and planning statements and over thirty-five interviews with US urban environmental and planning practitioners operating in Germany and the United States. What we discover is that, unlike more rational models of policy transfer, the voluntary importation of environmental and planning policies into the US is seldom a problem-focused, goal-oriented process. Rather, what we find is that a better depiction of the transfer and adoption process is of a relatively anarchic situation. This appears to occur due to a range of institutional and cultural filters that predispose American policy makers against gathering (and using) information and experiences from abroad. We find that this filtering process tends to encourage policy makers to discount (or reject outright) the usefulness of overseas models and that, when they do engage in this process, any information gathered appears to be based less upon well-researched and analyzed data than embedded ‘tacit’ knowledge.

German experience in managing stormwater with green infrastructure

This paper identifies and describes experience with ‘green’ stormwater management practices in Germany. It provides the context in which developments took place and extracts lessons learned to inform efforts of other countries in confronting urban stormwater challenges. Our findings show that an integrated environmental planning approach helps to balance environmental and urban development. Further, the transformation to a mixed grey and green infrastructure necessitates both a quantifiable long-term goal and a suite of policies to incentivise green infrastructure and support implementation. Finally, public authorities must assume leadership while enabling the participation of stakeholder groups in the transformation process.

Bring Back the States: Correcting for the Omissions of Globalization

Abstract While globalization is commonly viewed as leading to an ever-decreasing capacity of the nation-state to govern within its territorial boundaries, this article will argue that by overlaying a policy transfer framework on the processes more commonly associated with globalization it is possible to bring the states back into the debate. Specifically, it will be argued that the processes associated with globalization provide national actors the means (opportunity) to learn how to govern more effectively—ensuring that the nation-state is as important today as it ever was in relation to the governing process.

Can fair be efficient? New Labour, Social Liberalism and British economic policy

Prior to the 1997 British general election, the then Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown famously referred to the importance of post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory. Ridiculed in some sections of the media for the use of impenetrable technical jargon, he has rarely made mention of this economic theory again in public. However, the influence of endogenous growth theory is manifest in Brown’s economic policy and provides a central element in New Labour’s strategy for the realisation of a particular conception of social justice in a market setting. Many commentators have been inclined to see New Labour as having adopted a broadly neoliberal agenda, particularly in relation to its management of the economy, with an emphasis upon inflation targets, labour-market flexibility and supply-side policy. When combined with New Labour’s stated commitment to social justice, this appears to make for a pragmatic and uneasy mixture of traditional social democratic principles with a neoclassical economic framework, rather than a coherent ‘third way’. We shall argue that, in fact, New Labour has consciously adopted a more distinctive economic approach, one congruent with a conception of social justice that is itself distinguishable both from traditional social democracy and from neoliberalism. We will suggest that New Labour’s broad agenda reflects a distinctive ideological position best characterised as social liberal. The aim of the argument is not to present a general defence of New Labour’s ideological position: such a defence would involve a combination of technical arguments (about the validity of endogenous growth theory) and moral arguments (about the acceptability of a particular conception of social justice) and is not our intention here to adjudicate on either of these. Thus the present argument can be construed as a defence of New Labour thinkers only in relation to the criticism that they are incoherent and not in relation to the criticism that they are wrong. Equally, however, characterising the New Labour approach in this way allows us a clearer picture of the key assumptions underlying that approach, particularly in relation to the economy. The validity or otherwise of these assumptions may hold the key, ultimately, to the success or failure of the New Labour agenda.

Ideology, party identity and renewal

The article explores the phenomenon of ideological renewal, where a political party seeks to effect a radical break with the past and to present itself in a new light. This exploration is placed in the context of questions concerning a partys ideological identity and, in particular, how a suitable sense of identity can be sustained in the context of renewal. We suggest an analytical framework that identifies the imperatives that a party has to meet, in terms of the ideological construction and rhetorical articulation of ‘newness’, if the renewal process is to have a chance of success. This framework is then deployed in the examination of the construction of ‘New Labour’. Finally, some implications of the framework for the prospects of ideological renewal in the Conservative Party are explored.

Stormwater management: can we learn from others?

While there is considerable amount of literature examining how and why American federal and state governments look for information and ideas, there is considerably less knowledge of how these processes operate at the local level. This is particularly true in the case of how ideas related to sustainable water management policies are found and used by local governments. This article attempts to open this area by examining where, how and to what purpose local agents engage in the transfer of low-impact development policies and techniques. This article is organised around four questions: (1) Is there a basic agreement about the pioneers in stormwater management; (2) Where did agents gather information; (3) Did this involve complex understanding; and (4) What emerged as key obstacles to the transfer and learning processes amongst the local authorities involved in this study?

The British Child Support Agency: Did American Origins Bring Failure?

In late 1990 the British government published a two-volume White Paper, Children Come First: The Governments Proposals on the Maintenance of Children, announcing its intention to establish a Child Support Agency (CSA). In contrast with most of the literature associated with the British CSA, my main concern in this paper is not with the direct identification of the problems, or the perceived problems, the agency has experienced since its inception in 1993; it is with how the agency was developed, and how this can help explain many of its subsequent problems or perceived problems. More directly, I will show that the origins of the agency are to be found in policy transfer from the USA, and that the difficulties inherent in this process led to important implementation problems. To do this, the paper is divided into four sections. In the first section I examine why the Thatcher government decided to develop the agency, rather than continuing with the Department of Social Security (DSS)/court-based child-support award system in operation at the time. Second, I demonstrate how parallel developments in Britain and the USA led the British government to be interested in, and then borrow, the key elements of the US Child Support Enforcement System (CSES). Third, I discuss the key elements of the CSA that were transferred from the USA. In the final section I illustrate how policy transfer offers an important, even if partial, explanation of the CSAs implementation problems, and why two successive governments have used considerable legislative time attempting to ‘fix’ the CSA.