Fighting the Last War

Abstract

The concept of policy transfer (or ‘lesson-drawing’) has been used by theorists of public policy to explain how programmes developed in one context emerge in another. This article explores how far the insights of policy transfer can be used to understand better how campaign strategies move cross-nationally in cases where lender and borrower campaigns can be identified. Drawing on the policy transfer literature, it puts forward the following hypotheses: (1) transfers are from incumbent to opposition parties; (2) transfers are between parties with similar ideological positions; (3) the US is the dominant lender country; (4) party leaders, party staff and consultants are the agents of transfer; and (5) campaign strategy transfer is increasing over time. Based on a set of 32 election campaigns from the UK, USA, Israel and Germany, the article finds high levels of support for hypotheses 2—4 but more limited support for hypotheses 1 and 5. Like policy transfer, campaign strategy transfer involves a range of personnel from like-minded parties, with the United States as the predominant lender. However, campaigners appear more willing than policy-makers to learn ‘negative lessons’ (Dolowitz and Marsh, 2000: 12), and there is no evidence that campaign strategy transfer is becoming more prevalent over time.