Transnational Public Administration: Imperatives, Dilemmas and Opportunities

Abstract

This chapter sets out and explores how public policy scholars and policy practitioners are occupied by a common ambition to understand the circumstances, inputs and outcomes associated with the processes by which policy ideas transfer from one jurisdiction to another. For the former, this interest has manifested in an expansive, and expanding, multidisciplinary policy transfer literature that spans geography, law, business studies, political science, international relations and public policy scholars. For the latter, a series of connected trends have substantially expanded the opportunities and imperatives for government officials to learn from elsewhere: first, the ubiquitous access to shared information via the Internet has entailed fundamental changes in the way governments acquire, analyse and disseminate information; second, the devolution of decision-making autonomy has given individual policy officials greater licence to seek policy-relevant information from overseas counterparts; and third, the growth in transnational policy issues brings new policy challenges to the fore. Together these trends form the backdrop to the modern state and the imperatives of transnational cooperation and collaboration.