Martin Lodge

The Limitations of ‘Policy Transfer’ and ‘Lesson Drawing’ for Public Policy Research

The concepts of ‘lesson drawing’ and ‘policy transfer’ have become increasingly influential ways of understanding public policy, especially in the UK. However, the main proponents of the concepts, Rose for ‘lesson drawing’ and Dolowitz and Marsh for ‘policy transfer’, have difficulty in providing convincing answers to three questions that are important for them and those engaged in similar studies. First, can they be defined as distinctive forms of policy-making separate from other, more conventional, forms? ‘Lesson drawing’ is very similar to conventional accounts of ‘rational’ policy-making and ‘policy transfer’ is very difficult to define distinctly from many other forms of policy-making. Second, why does ‘lesson drawing’ and ‘policy transfer’ occur rather than some other form of policy-making? The proponents of ‘policy transfer’ put a set of diverse and conflicting theories under a common framework, obscuring differences between them. Third, what are the effects of ‘lesson drawing’ and ‘policy transfer’ on policy-making and how do they compare to other processes? Whilst the effect of more ‘lesson drawing’ seems to be more ‘rational’ policy-making, the effect of ‘policy transfer’ on policy ‘success’ and ‘failure’ is less clear. Dolowitz and Marsh redescribe aspects of ‘failure’ as different forms of ‘transfer’ rather than giving independent reasons for outcomes based on features of transfer processes. Overall, particularly in the case of ‘policy transfer’, researchers may be better off selecting from a range of alternative approaches than limiting themselves to these conceptual frameworks.

Regulation, the Regulatory State and European Politics

For the past 15 years or so, the claim of a rise of the regulatory state in Europe has been a dominant theme in public policy research. This paper critically reflects on this claim and the associated scholarship by considering four key questions. First, what is the significance of the supposed rise of the regulatory state for the state in Europe and how can this trend be explained? Second, what insights have been gained from the study of phenomena associated with the regulatory state, both in terms of EU and national levels of government as well as in terms of process and organisational understandings of policy analysis? Third, does the regulatory state represent a stable arrangement or does it suffer from its own peculiar dilemmas that fundamentally affect the nature of European states? Fourth, and finally, this article develops three scenarios – those of withering away, plodding along, and rejuvenation – for the future of the (study of the) regulatory state in Europe.

Institutional choice and policy transfer: reforming British and German railway regulation

The notions of “policy learning” and “policy transfer” have become increasingly influential in the public-policy literature. By utilizing a comparative analysis of regulatory change in the railways in Britain and Germany, it is argued that an institutional approach adds to the understanding of “learning” and “transfer” processes, as well as explaining which institutions mattered as Britain and Germany adopted distinctively different regulatory regimes. The institutional approach points to the constraints involved in the selection of regulatory design ideas and, by assessing three institutional factors that structure relationships between the policy domain and its environments, suggests that in the case of railway privatization in Britain and Germany in the 1990s, it was the structure of the political-administrative nexus that centrally shaped why particular policy options were selected while others were neglected.

Accountability and Transparency in Regulation: Critiques, Doctrines and Instruments

This book suggests that the scope and breadth of regulatory reforms since the mid-1980s and particularly during the 1990s, are so striking that they necessitate a reappraisal of current approaches to the study of the politics of regulation. The authors call for the adoption of different and fresh perspectives to examine this area.

The importance of being modern: international benchmarking and national regulatory innovation

Abstract Benchmarking and peer reviews have been identified as increasingly influential in a number of policy arenas. Little is known, however, about the interaction between international and national levels and its effects. This paper explores such processes in one of the ‘original’ settings of these governance types – the OECDs reviews of a countrys regulatory policies in the case of Ireland. Based on the limited results in the Irish example, it is argued that the supposed effects of peer reviews and benchmarking require such high system requirements at the national level that they are unlikely to facilitate the innovation of national regulatory policies according to international ‘best practice’ standards.

Varieties of Europeanisation and the National Regulatory State

The notions of ‘regulatory state’ and ‘Europeanisation’ have become increasingly current in recent years. This article analyses the extent to which the national regulatory state has been Europeanised, focusing in particular on network industry regulation in four European Union (EU) member states, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany and Sweden. It does so in three steps. First, four dimensions of Europeanisation are discussed, pointing to: different institutional constellations in which Europeanisation takes place, different Europeanisation ‘triggers’; institutional consequences of Europeanisation at the national level; and, finally, different dynamics of Europeanisation. Second, the article surveys regulatory reform in four EU member states, suggesting that national diversity remains prominent, whether in terms of organising network regulation, processes of reform or the utilisation of particular regulatory instruments to enhance transparency. Finally, the article considers the impact of the four dimensions of Europeanisation on the national regulatory state in network regulation. It suggests that, far from transforming national regulation, Europeanisation is associated with many different phenomena, allowing for continued national diversity and adding to existing policy cleavages.

Exploring the co-ordination of economic regulation

ABSTRACT The literature on power dispersion in the regulatory state emphasizes the interdependence of regulatory agencies. However, this may conflict with their independence and specialization. Given this potential conflict, what provisions exist to facilitate co-ordination? And do these reflect national administrative traditions? This study explores these questions in the context of the formalization of co-ordination in economic regulation. First, we develop a new analytical framework for the analysis of co-ordination. Second, we set out how national administrative traditions may affect the formalization of co-ordination. Third, we explore the variation in co-ordination by analysing the formal relations among regulators in four countries with distinct administrative traditions – Germany, Denmark, Italy and the United Kingdom (UK). Our findings suggest that the variation may at least partially be traced back to the independence of agencies. They also stress the importance of competition authorities as focal organizations in shaping relations in the area of economic regulation.

Isomorphism of national policies? The ‘Europeanisation’ of German competition and public procurement law

The ‘Europeanisation’ of domestic public policies has been among the key themes in recent reforms in EU member states. This article employs the analytical concept of ‘isomorphism’ to come to a better understanding of ‘Europeanisation’. Various mechanisms which might lead to isomorphic change are being identified and applied to the reforms in German competition and public procurement law. The application of the isomorphism framework suggests that ‘Europeanisation’ has multiple sources and cannot be understood as a uniform process nor as leading to uniform outcomes.

Public Service Bargains in British Central Government: Multiplication, Diversification and Reassertion?

Interest in the existence and the effect of administrative traditions has been a long-standing feature in the study of executive government, especially when linked to the investigation of inheritance, transplant and irritant effects. Two perspectives have been particularly prominent when it comes to the study of ‘legacies’. The first broad perspective emphasizes the mortmain effect of administrative and political institutions, allowing for more or (usually) less scope for reform. The second broad perspective is linked to the study of institutional transfer, especially in the light of experiences of colonial and postcolonial administration. For example, the interaction of the ‘Whitehall model’ being handed over to a ‘derivative middle class’ led to specific modifications to ‘public service bargains’ in the English-speaking Caribbean (Lodge and Stirton 2009; Subramaniam 1983).

Risk, Regulation and Crisis: Comparing National Responses in Food Safety Regulation

The literature on risk regulation often assumes a direct link between public pressure and regulatory responses. This article investigates whether the direction of regulatory response is related to public argumentation as expressed in the national print media. Three approaches are explored: national policy patterns, political panics expressed in Pavlovian politics, and policy responses shaped by universal policy paradigms. It assesses these three approaches in comparative perspective by looking at scandals in food safety regulation in Denmark, Germany and the US, looking at argumentation patterns in the national print media and using a coding system derived from grid-group cultural theory and regulatory responses. While all three countries display mostly hierarchical argumentation patterns, their actual regulatory responses point to diverse patterns.