Martin de Jong

Cross-National Policy Transfer to Developing Countries: Prologue

Application of principles, methods and techniques of structured policy analysis, regular impact assessments and clearly defined planning frameworks (names vary from policy area to policy area) is relatively common in what are known as Western countries, especially North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Northern Europe. Although political forces come into play in any policy process, the above mentioned countries have adopted the adage that power-play between political and socioeconomic actors should at least be mitigated by aspects of rationality and democracy (Flyvbjerg, 1998). The former is characterized by a serious attempt to solve problems by analytical means, the latter by imbuing interaction processes leading to such problem-solving with a participatory practice. In other words, relevant political and socioeconomic actors should collaborate to systematically make sense of problems and agree on the formulation of policy measures to eliminate these problems. AngloSaxon and North-European administrative cultures have been shown to represent values which go a long way in making such structured problem-solving possible, at least in theory. They have embraced linear or monochronic time-conceptions, have a universalistic outlook of rule application, tend to separate societal roles from Martin de Jong is associate professor of policy, organisation and management at the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. He publishes and lectures mainly on subjects of cross-national policy transfer, cross-cultural management and transport infrastructure policy. He is also responsible for the international master programme Engineering and Policy Analysis, for which he has helped to set up a Chinese counterpart with the same name.

Understanding how to import good governance practices in Bangladeshi villages

If good governance is a necessary condition for developing countries to receive aid and funds from donor countries to promote sustainable economic growth and poverty relief, the introduction of public participation is one of the means to achieve credibility. The main concern of international donors is that the voices and interests of the underprivileged, the poor, the handicapped and the women are systematically disregarded, if the dominant families, clans and tribes divide up the funds amongst themselves and leave little of the public purse for those who need it only more. But how straightforward is this emphasis placed on transparency and participation in the eyes of local experts, even progressive ones who are willing to improve the lot of their countries and move in the direction of Western modes of behavior? For instance, a number of years ago, a senior government official in Bangladesh reacted to the idea of introducing participatory decision-making to his country with the following comment: How can you have participatory development in a hierarchical country? In order for analytical methods and planning frameworks to become effective in policy environments where they do not originate, they have to be incorporated in one way or another into social, political, and administrative practices as they exist in

Cross-national transfer of policy models to developing countries: Epilogue

What lessons can we learn from the historical and contemporary narratives and analyses from the previous articles? Can any tendencies or trends be distinguished as to the dos and don’ts of policy transfer to developing countries? To answer that question, we will first go back to the issues raised in the prologue and then relate them to the particular events in the different cases.

Transferring the technology, policy, and management concept from the Netherlands to China

The literature on policy transfer between countries and organization has seen rapid growth. Whether framed in terms of policy transfer, institutional transplantation, imitation and emulation or copying policy models and ideas, a sizeable number of determinants for success have been identified to understand why such conceptual or institutional transfers grow out to become successes or failures in their countries or organizations of adoption. What is much less common is to describe such a process through the lens of participants inside this transfer. This paper is an attempt to do just that. It will tell the story of the higher-educational concept of Technology, Policy and Management from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands to Harbin Institute of Technology in China, studied by means of participatory observation. The keys and clues for successful transplantation from the literature will subsequently be compared with the experiences from this case, and additional lessons, some of which are specific to Western-Chinese mutual learning, are formulated.

Can structured planning frameworks fulfill the needs of Cambodia’s rural poor?

Walking several kilometers every day to fetch clean drinking water is not a common experience to most policymakers. For many Cambodian women, however, this is a daily reality. This time-consuming activity places a high extra burden on these womens already heavy workload and often hampers their development as well as that of their families. The Cambodian government, supported by national and international organizations, has made efforts to alleviate the workload of these women by developing more water wells and creating a better maintenance of the existing ones. Cambodian government officials are usually not familiar with the situations in Cambodias rural areas; therefore the decisions they make do not always meet the real needs of the Cambodian poor (Ramaekers, 2004). Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning (IRAP) is a participatory planning tool for rural development of which the main objective is to help draft plans that will improve access to Basic Minimum Needs (BMN) such as clean drinking water for the rural poor. The IRAP process endeavors to address three priority-setting questions related to rural accessibility, transport, and infrastructure: What should be done? Where should it be done? How should it be done? The planning procedure not only involves water supply as a sector. Roads, education, health centers, and markets are four other sectors included in the tool. The approach to the planning of infrastructure works can be considered as demand-driven,