Abortion Policy in Western Democracies: A Cross-National Analysis

This article provides a comparative analysis of abortion policies for 21 countries in Western Europe and North America. First, after briefly discussing the historical evolution of abortion attitudes and policies, a typology of current abortion laws is presented. Second, the mode of determining abortion policy is compared — judicial (Germany, Canada), legislative (Britain, France), and direct democracy (referenda in Italy, Ireland). Third, the question of abortion policy implementation is considered. In other words, does the legal status of abortion really make a difference regarding the pattern of availability and use of abortion services? Fourth, potential explanatory variables (left-wing party strength, feminism, Catholicism) regarding the content and process of abortion policies is evaluated.     

Cross-National Concepts in Supranational Governance: State–Society Relations and EU Policy Making

The emergence of multiple and shifting modes of governance both intranationally and supranationally has posed difficulties for analysts accustomed to refining or testing singular types of politics. When confronted with this changing complexity, a comprehensive framework can be a very useful diagnostic and organizational tool. This article devises one such conceptual framework to clarify and systematize varieties of state autonomy and state–society relations. By combining fundamental conceptions of action, elemental control mechanisms, and basic types of interaction, a comprehensive framework is constructed for characterizing and comparing governance modes in a conceptually coherent manner. Many of the abstract spaces within this conceptual field share affinities with types of state autonomy and state–society relations depicted in major theoretical approaches to national politics (i.e., authoritarianism, statism, pluralism, corporatism, institutionalism, and Marxism). This article uses this conceptual framework to systematize these major governance modes and to illuminate their coexistence in supranational governance by examining the European Union policy process.     

Political Leadership and Bureaucratic Autonomy: Effects of Agencification

Previous studies have shown that agencification tends to reduce political control within a government portfolio. However, doubts have been raised as regards to the robustness of these findings. In this article we document that agency officials pay significantly less attention to signals from executive politicians than their counterparts within ministerial (cabinet-level) departments. This finding holds when we control for variation in tasks, the political salience of issue areas, and officials' rank. Simultaneously we observe that the three control variables all have an independent effect on officials' attentiveness to a steer from above. In addition we find that the more organizational capacity available within the respective ministerial departments, the more agency personnel tend to assign weight to signals from the political leadership. We apply large-N questionnaire data at three points in time, spanning two decades and shifting administrative doctrines.     

Ideas and Policy Change

Peter Hall's 1993 article came at the same time as a parallel body of literature was developing, some building explicitly, some only implicitly, on similar ideas. I review some literature on policy communities, ideas, and the nature of policy change before exploring the statistical distribution of budget changes at three levels of aggregation. The similarity of these results suggests that a single process may be at work rather than different processes for first‐, second‐, and third‐order change, as Hall's original formulation has it. As Hall suggests, these processes typically generate only marginal adjustments but occasionally create fundamental change. The degree of discredit to the status quo may be an important unexplored variable in explaining the ability of policy reformers to enact marginal, substantial, or fundamental policy changes. In sum, this article shows the similarities and mutual value of Hall's approach with others that would appear to be starkly contrasting.     

Rituals of Reform,Policy Transfer,and the National University Corporation Reforms of Japan

In 2004, Japan restructured the state‐directed public university system to create the national university corporations (NUCs). Proponents of the reforms made explicit mention of agentification in the United Kingdom, changes to university management structures elsewhere, and reforms in the wider Japanese public sector. As such, the NUC reforms are an example of policy transfer. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, however, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) has not surrendered the large degree of control it had manifested over the university system. Rather the means of control have changed from largely direct ones to largely indirect ones. Policy transfer provided a means by which MEXT could legitimate its policy stance by referring to developments elsewhere, show it was responding to pressure for reform by adopting its rhetoric and superficial forms, but use this to capture the policy agenda to its own ends.     

Non-Governmental Policy Transfer: The Strategies of Independent Policy Institutes

Discussions of policy transfer have primarily focused on official actors and networks. The non-governmental mode of policy transfer via foundations, think tanks and non-governmental organizations is a relatively neglected dimension. Accordingly, this paper addresses the role of think tanks in promoting the spread of policy ideas about privatization. The importance of think tanks to policy transfer is their ability to diffuse ideas by (1) acting as a clearing-house for information; (2) their involvement in the advocacy of ideas; (3) their involvement in domestic and transnational policy networks; and (4) their intellectual and scholarly base providing expertise on specialized policy issues. Concepts from comparative public policy and international relations such as "social learning" and "epistemic communities" are used to outline the way think tanks advocate innovative policy ideas. However, not only have think tanks been effective in promoting the transfer of policy ideas, the international spread of think tanks also exhibits organizationaltransfer.     

Policy Transfer as a Form of Prospective Policy Evaluation: Challenges and Recommendations

This article focuses on policy transfer as a form of prospective policy analysis, which we define as policy makers' attempts to assess the effect of a policy or program before it is put in place. Despite a burgeoning literature on cross-national policy transfer, there has been little systematic comparison of cases to identify either common problems or potential strategies in the practice of policy transfer. This article sets forth a rational model of policy transfer and examines, in light of that model, case studies of cross-national policy transfer spanning different policy domains. Taking into account the constraints faced by policy makers, we relax standard rational decision-making criteria and make recommendations for improving the process of policy transfer as a form of prospective policy evaluation.     

Schools with a Difference: Policy Discourses and Education Reform in Britain and Germany

Throughout the 1990s, corruption cases, policy failure and scandals tarnished Belgium's international reputation. In this article, we analyse the effect of federalism and political culture on corruption and policy failures and their impact on the likelihood of such occurrences becoming scandals. Survey material suggests that there are few differences between French- and Dutch-speakers in the perception and tolerance of corruption. We then list a number of variables that can explain corruption in Belgium and argue that the independent effect of federalism is very limited. Next we demonstrate that federalism has played a much more significant role in lowering the risk of policy failure, while at the same time creating a few new vulnerabilities. Finally, we argue that the regional political elites do not often engage in policy learning and frequently put forward federalism as the main solution to the avoidance of policy failure and scandal. In this sense, regional political elites do not seize the opportunity for policy experimentation and transfer that is generally seen as one of the main virtues of a federal system of government.     

Understanding Cross National Policy Transfers: The Case of Britain and the US

Policy transfer across countries is occurring with increasing frequency. Yet, despite the fact that the importance of such policy learning is often cited as one of the primary rationales for comparative policy analysis, policy transfer is an under-researched area of political science. This article examines and analyzes the actual process of policy transfer between the US and Britain and considers the relationship between policy transfer and the policymaking process.     

Policy Transfer and Policy Learning: A Study of the 1991 NewZealand Health Services Taskforce

Research into policy transfer and lesson drawing has been criticized asfew authors have convincingly shown how cross-national policy learning actually influences policy formation in a particular jurisdiction. This article addresses this gap by presenting a study of the development of the 1991 health policy in New Zealand. By studying the process of policy development, rather than just a policy document, it was possible to disaggregate different aspects of the policy and to identify sources and influences. This article finds that the 'conspiracy' model of policy formation does not fit this case as it presents an overly simplistic view, which allows little space for policy learning. This case illustrates the subtle and multifaceted influence of different jurisdictions, different institutions, and different individuals on a given policy.     

Introduction: The OECD and Policy Transfer: Comparative Case Studies

Abstract

The six articles in this issue examine the role of the OECD in policy transfer. Two articles (Kudrle on international tax agreements, and Legrand and Vas on Australia’s vocational and educational training policy) conclude that the OECD has been influential, albeit in a grinding and lengthy way. Two others (Clifton on the OECD’s “enhanced engagement” policy with five G-20 countries, and Eccleston and Woodward on tax transparency) find the OECD’s influence either patchier or even dysfunctional. Carroll’s article provides a novel analysis of policy transfer through accession processes, while Alasuutari explores transfer in terms of a comparative analysis of policy rationalizations that refer to the OECD as a “standard.” A common theme of all six articles is the way in which policy transfer is driven by exogenous pressures and crises, and how international governmental organizations like the OECD exploit these pressures to protect and expand their global relevance.     

Explaining Petroleum Policy in Britain and Norway, 1962-90

Petroleum policy in Britain and Norway provides comparativists with an opportunity to study policy formation, stability, and transformation on a cross-national basis. This study explains why British and Norwegian officials decided to intervene in the North Sea, why offshore policy in the two countries went through periods of stability and change, and why they adopted similar offshore systems in the 1960s and 1970s but diverged markedly in the 1980s. We develop an explanatory framework using insights from state-centric, group politics, rational choice, and institutional models of policy-making. The framework identifies three decision-making contexts in which petroleum policy-makers operate simultaneously: an oil context, a domestic political context, and an international context, Each context establishes objectives for policy-makers, indicates an acceptable degree of government intervention, and narrows policy options. Rational decision-making within each context, however, may yield conflicting results. These must be worked out through intrastate and/or state-society bargaining. The decision-making contexts in Britain and Norway produced similar policies in the 1960s and 1970s, but the similarities hid deeper differences. Norwegian officials consistently favored state intervention offshore, and Norwegian interest groups successfully lobbied the state for offshore favors, while British officials intervened more reluctantly and paid less attention to societal interests. Differences in decision-making contexts finally produced a major divergence in offshore policies in the 1980s when the Thatcher government dismantled the state's offshore participation policy.     

Tracing the Flow of Policy Ideas in Legislatures: A Text Reuse Approach

This article proposes a new approach to investigating the substance of lawmaking. Only a very small proportion of bills become law in the U.S. Congress. However, the bills that do become law often serve as vehicles for language originating in other bills. We investigate “text reuse” methods as a means for tracing the progress of policy ideas in legislation. We then show how a focus on policy ideas leads to new insights into the lawmaking process. Although our focus is on relating content found within bills, the same methods can be used to study policy substance across many research domains.     

Regulatory Competition and the Politics of Financial Market Reform in Britain and Japan

This article examines the impact that the internationalization of jnance has had on the regulation of domestic securities markets in Japan and Britain. In particular, it seeks to explain the apparent incompatibility of two distinct trends: deregulation (and state retreat) on the one hand, and increased regulation and state involvement in markets on the other.
Much of the literature about the efects of internationalization on domestic policymaking has drfjculty explaining these two distinct regulatory frends. First, there has been no uniform "competition in regulatory laxity." Second, the United States does not appear to have exerted hegemonic influence over outcomes. Finally, domestic-level explanations which deny the importance of systemic-level influences on domestic policy choices are unable to explain the similarity of policy choices undertaken by governments with very different regulatory traditions.
I argue instead that regulatory reforms have been undertaken primarily for the benefit of a particular set of private economic actors—mobile consumers of financial services, including both holders of liquid investment capital and large multinational borrowers. Internationalization has systematically strengthened their influence over the policymaking process by making "exit" from one political marketplace to another a more realistic and more potent bargaining strategy than the alternative of exercising "voice."     

Dysfunctional Policy Transfer in National Tax Blacklists

Common sense and much of the policy transfer literature suggests that learning from abroad delivers better policy at lower cost. In contrast, this article argues that policy transfer in tax blacklists has been a dysfunctional process tending to replicate errors. Rather than reflecting learning, normative mimicry, or market pressures, over‐committed policymakers have responded to complexity and crisis by unreflectively cutting and pasting from foreign models. Facing a short‐term political imperative to “do something” about tax evasion in an environment of fiscal crisis, many policy makers have compiled blacklists of tax havens by copying lists of “the usual suspects” from abroad. Evidence for both the process of transfer and the dysfunctional nature of resulting policy is provided by tracking recurring errors in these lists that are unlikely to have arisen independently.     

Valence,Policy Ideas,and the Rise of Sustainability

This article introduces to policy studies the concept of valence, which we define as the emotional quality of an idea that makes it more or less attractive. We argue that valence explains why some ideas are more successful than others, sometimes gaining paradigmatic status. A policy idea is attractive when its valence matches the mood of a target population. Skilled policy entrepreneurs use ideas with high valence to frame policy issues and generate support for their policy proposals. The usefulness of the concept of valence is illustrated with the case of sustainability, an idea that has expanded from the realm of environmental policy to dominate discussions in such diverse policy areas as pension reform, public finance, labor markets, and energy security. As the valence of sustainability has increased, policy entrepreneurs have used the idea to reframe problems in these various policy areas and promote reforms.