Policy Diffusion, Transfer, and Convergence

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This study is concerned with higher education policy convergence in the realm of the Bologna Process, domestic and international factors causing as well as conditioning the degree of convergence observed. Hence, it is concerned with processes of policy diffusion, transfer, and convergence in an international setting. Therefore, the first part of this chapter focuses on the definitions and concepts of policy diffusion, transfer, and convergence in the social sciences. It presents an overview of research undertaken on mechanisms and exogenous factors of policy diffusion, such as policy networks and epistemic communities; norms, legitimacy, and opinion leadership as well as policy learning. Adjacent to this, domestic and policy specific factors, which are generally believed to influence processes of policy diffusion and convergence, are discussed as well as the methods applied in policy diffusion and convergence studies. This provides general background information on research strategies and methods in the field of policy diffusion and convergence research as well as lays the groundwork for discussions on research methodology, which will be seen in later chapters. The overview of relevant studies exclusively focuses on research with regard to diffusion, policy transfer, and convergence in relation to our research question, thus, only on voluntary policy transfer.