TRANSGOVERNMENTAL POLICY NETWORKS IN THE ANGLOSPHERE

Abstract

Recent scholarship in public administration has drawn attention to the proliferation of transnational policy‐making processes and administrative practices. Although policy transfer and transgovernmental scholars have recognized the influence of these practices on domestic policy outcomes, little is known about how distinctive configurations of cross‐jurisdictional policy networks form. This article addresses this issue by exploring three novel transgovernmental policy networks situated in the Anglosphere: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Drawing on constructivist perspectives, the article holds culture, values and norms as critical to the coalescence of Anglosphere policy networks and an important additional explanation of how transnational policy communities emerge. These hitherto unreported networks facilitate, first, the transfer of policy ideas to resolve domestic policy problems and, second, collaborative mechanisms to resolve transnational challenges. Consideration of these novel public sector ‘assemblages’ deepens our empirical and theoretical knowledge of the new spaces of transnational administration.