Policy transfer

Abstract

The modern epoch of public policy is increasingly susceptible to the influence of social, economic, and political pathologies beyond national borders. Responding to these dynamics, Public Policy scholars have turned their attention to their common theoretical and empirical footing they share with their International Political Economy (IPE) cousins. These relatively young scholarly fields of study—some say disciplines—have developed in parallel with few intersections. This chapter reviews the key theoretical and methodological concerns that have separated the two fields from theoretical and conceptual collaboration, cross-fertilization, and exchange. It commences by reviewing the genesis and evolution of the fields, before turning to their overlaps, “trespasses,” and tensions. Especially important here have been explanations of policy transfer processes. The chapter goes on to prescribe ways to reconcile or alleviate these tensions via the shared interest of IPE and public policy in the emergence of global administrations, administrators, and administrative spaces. This important new arena of global and state decision-making presents new conceptual space to reconcile IPE/Public Policy approaches that potentially enhance theoretical and substantive insights into the transnationalizing political world.