Abstract
This article describes a policy adoption case study about deinstitutionalization of childcare in Georgia since independence. It highlights the evolving and non-homogeneous nature of transnational agency in the area of childcare deinstitutionalization, and offers insights into the complex relationship between transnational agency and national policymaking. The analysis draws on national policy documents, reports of United Nations agencies, the European Union, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and non-governmental organizations that contributed to the evolution of childcare deinstitutionalization in Georgia. We trace several developments: evolution of Georgian domestic policy versus the changing role of childcare deinstitutionalization in activities of various transnational actors. We find that Georgian childcare was shifting towards deinstitutionalization at the same time as global policy actors were developing their interventions in this policy area, showing how a lower middle-income country can develop its domestic social policies in conditions of an incoherent external environment.
Highlights
The plight of Romanian orphanages in the 1990s shook the world and brought the issue of child institutionalization onto the global agenda
The DI of childcare in Georgia demonstrates some well-known features of transnational agency, and shows the possibility of significant policy transformations in a low- and middle-income country before the policy innovation is mainstreamed and institutionalized by powerful Western actors
This observation agrees with existing research (e.g. Foli, 2016), which suggests that transnational actors can employ multiple strategies to influence social policies in third countries, including ‘ideational, institutional, and material incentives’, going beyond coercion and conditionalities
Summary
The plight of Romanian orphanages in the 1990s shook the world and brought the issue of child institutionalization onto the global agenda. The case study method (e.g. Gerring, 2016) will provide space for sufficiently detailed analysis, based on national policy documents, reports of UN agencies, the European Union, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and relevant NGOs. The article first discusses the emergence and development of DI policy in Georgia, in the context of diverse transnational actors and their activities in the area of alternative, out of home childcare.
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