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."     

There's Regulatory Crime, and then there's Landlord Crime: from 'Rachmanites' to 'Partners'

This article considers local authority strategies towards the regulation and prosecution of private landlords who commit the criminal offences of unlawful eviction and harassment. Generally, local authorities operate compliance-based strategies, rarely (if ever) resorting to prosecution. In seeking to explain this approach, the article draws upon the literature concerning regulatory crime, but also distinguishes local authority responses to landlord crime from regulatory crime as more typically conceived. Broadly, it is argued that, while there are clear parallels with other areas of regulatory activity, there is much that is different about landlord crime, particularly as a result of central government strategies towards the private rented sector, the legislative background to landlord crime, and the motivations behind local approaches to regulation.     

What does cost-benefit analysis add to decision making? Evidence from the criminal justice literature

This paper asks whether undertaking a cost-benefit analysis provides additional information to policy makers as compared to an analysis solely of the effect of an intervention. A literature review identified 106 evaluations of criminal justice interventions that reported both an effect size and measures of net benefit. Data on net benefit and effect size were extracted from these studies. We found that effect size is only weakly related to net benefits. The rank order of net benefits and effect size are minimally correlated. Furthermore, we found that the two analytic methods would yield opposing policy recommendations for more than one in four interventions. These bi-variate findings are supported by the results of multivariate models. However, further research is needed to verify the accuracy of the standard errors on net benefit estimates, so these models must be interpreted with caution.

Dilemmas of Policy Innovation in the Public Sector: A Case Study of the National Innovation Summit

Policy innovation is a significant challenge for the public sector. This article illustrates its magnitude through a case study of the National Innovation Summit. The article concludes that the Summit represented an elaborate process of search and engagement that sanctioned an outcome that was, in most respects, largely pre‐determined. Its outreach and deliberations served the political purpose of mobilising industry and media attention and communicating the government's commitment. But there is no evidence that it exercised any substantive influence on policy development. The obstacles confounding any other outcome are considerable. Strategic thinking is inhibited by various organisational factors including lock‐in to a present successful strategy, the constraints on policy choices associated with multiple veto points and the need to maintain medium term fiscal and policy discipline across a wide range of agencies and claimants. The article explores ways these inhibitions might be overcome.