Policy Transfer and the Developing Country Experience Gap: Taking a Southern Perspective

Abstract

The generic term policy transfer encompasses a host of concepts describing the process of moving policies, programmes, ideas or institutions from one time and space to another. This chapter challenges the short sightedness of the contemporary policy transfer literature and contributes to it an additional Southern perspective. Dolowitz and Marsh list several types of agent that are involved in policy transfer processes: elected officials; political parties; bureaucrats; pressure groups, etc. Rose argues that the key stimulus to spark a search for lessons is political dissatisfaction. Lesson drawing concerns itself with programmes, their development and policy change, in the political arena. Community involvement and partnership working are central to Health Action Zone philosophy. However, although there is some history of local action in most zones, progress in these key areas has been patchy. The chapter highlights an important weakness in current policy transfer activity: its inherent bias towards transfer between developed nations.