Diffusion Of Policy Innovations Research Articles

The Role of Subnational Climate Policy Initiatives in Achieving Global Climate Goals

Purpose: The main objective of this study was to investigate the role of subnational climate policy initiatives in achieving global climate goals.
 Methodology: The study adopted a desktop research methodology. Desk research refers to secondary data or that which can be collected without fieldwork. Desk research is basically involved in collecting data from existing resources hence it is often considered a low cost technique as compared to field research, as the main cost is involved in executive’s time, telephone charges and directories. Thus, the study relied on already published studies, reports and statistics. This secondary data was easily accessed through the online journals and library.
 Findings: The findings revealed that there exists a contextual and methodological gap relating to the role of subnational climate policy initiatives in achieving global climate goals. Preliminary empirical review revealed that subnational climate policies have a demonstrable impact on emissions reductions and climate resilience. By adopting innovative approaches to renewable energy deployment, carbon pricing mechanisms, and climate adaptation strategies, subnational governments can serve as laboratories of experimentation, showcasing the feasibility and effectiveness of various climate solutions. These findings emphasize the importance of recognizing subnational entities as pivotal actors in climate policymaking, with the potential to catalyze broader change.
 Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The Diffusion of Innovations theory, Multi-Level Governance theory and the Policy Innovation Diffusion theory may be used to anchor future studies achieving global climate goals. The study recommended for the strengthening of intergovernmental collaborations, sharing best practices and lessons learnt, aligning climate policies with local context, measuring and reporting progress and engaging stakeholders and civil society.

Intergovernmental Policy Signal Transmission and Open Government Data Platform Pilot Diffusion in China

Intergovernmental relations play an important role in policy innovation diffusion, yet few studies have analyzed its impact on open government data (OGD) adoption. We used event history analysis to analyze the diffusion of OGD in China. The diffusion of OGD among municipal governments is primarily influenced by vertical pressure from superior governments and horizontal pressure from neighboring governments, with the latter having a greater impact. The provincial government plays an intermediary role between the central government and the municipal government. A comprehensive analysis of the interplay between policy signals and policy pilots demonstrates that provincial signals have a substantial influence on municipal pilots, whereas the impact of provincial pilots on municipal signals is insignificant. These findings contribute to OGD adoption research and practices and promote the development of policy diffusion theory.

Policy Diffusion Speed: A Replication Study Using the State Policy Innovation and Diffusion Database

Data accumulation efforts are pushing the study of policy innovation diffusion in new directions. This replication study uses one such effort, the State Policy Innovation and Diffusion database, to interrogate the claim that policy attributes like salience and complexity condition the speed of innovation adoption. The study finds that policy complexity does push the effect of policy salience in a negative direction. However, it also finds substantial heterogeneity in these conditional effects across State Policy Innovation and Diffusion’s major constituent datasets. In addition, while not completely answering questions about convenience sampling bias, the study shows that the fundamental results do not change with one re-weighting of the results to capture a hypothetical distribution of the population of state policy innovations. The article concludes with future directions for the study of both policy diffusion within American federalism and cross-national diffusion.

How does policy innovation diffuse among Chinese local governments? A qualitative comparative analysis of River Chief Innovation

AbstractIt is well‐documented that interlocal learning and competition could drive policy innovation diffusion. However, their interconnection in non‐western regimes as China is less explored. Utilizing the method of qualitative comparative analysis on the case of River Chief Innovation, this article intends to explore the multiple conjunctural causation of Chinese policy diffusion and the impacts of central recognition. Our findings suggest that interlocal learning and tournament could intimately stimulate Chinese policy diffusion through different combinations. Different governments would adopt innovation for various reasons in a continuum of diffusion mechanisms, involving the technical learning, the championship‐induced learning, the mandate‐induced learning, and the innovation tournament. Hence, despite the ongoing centralization under Xi, space for local spontaneous learning remains. We also find that central recognition could activate the interlocal tournament and extend the diffusion continuum to the tournament side. Therefore, it facilitates policy diffusion toward governments that lack learning motivations and promotes the local implementation of central preferences.

Policy Diffusion Through Multiple Streams: The (Non‐)Adoption of Energy Conservation Building Code in India

Although the diffusion of policy innovations can promote sustainability, how this process can be accelerated remains unclear. I address this gap by conceptualizing policy transfer and policy diffusion using the multiple streams framework (MSF) and developing hypotheses to connect them. I apply this theorization to explain the limited spread of the energy conservation building code (ECBC) in India by combining a process trace of policy adoption in the embedded case of Andhra Pradesh with a dyadic event history analysis of state‐level diffusion during 2012‐18. The data for this study are collated from official statistics, elite interviews, news reports, policy documents, and secondary literature. The qualitative analysis shows that policy transfer to Andhra Pradesh occurred when external influence and prior adoption elsewhere were used by a policy entrepreneur to exploit a window of opportunity and couple problem, policy, and politics in the state; the dyadic analysis demonstrates that policy diffusion was influenced by the interaction among the structural characteristics of the problem, policy, and politics streams. I conclude with the implications for research on policy diffusion and the MSF as well as the relevance of the findings for promoting policy innovation for a sustainable energy transition.

Understanding the Determinants in the Different Government AI Adoption Stages: Evidence of Local Government Chatbots in China

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), countries are increasingly adopting AI-guided chatbots to improve service on government portals. The reduction in face-to-face services under COVID-19 pandemic will further accelerate this trend. However, the adoption and performance of the existing chatbots differ. Based on the literature on e-government adoption and innovative policy innovation diffusion, this article examines both the initial and postadoption stages of chatbot usage in China’s local governments. While the first phase employs the survival model of event history analysis to explore the factors that influence the decision to adopt chatbots in local government, the second phase analyzes the determinants of those chatbots’ performance in the postadoption stage. We find that pressure factors and readiness factors play different roles in the different adoption stages. Although pressure can encourage local governments to implement chatbots, these governments’ readiness determined how well the chatbots perform after their initial adoption. The implications and limitations of the research are also discussed.

Digital Innovations in Public Administrations: Technological or Policy Innovation Diffusion?

Defined as digital innovation in public administrations, electronic government (e-government) diffusion has been studied by two bodies of work in the literature. The first has mainly focused on e-government, drawing on the theory of innovation diffusion as a general framework, while the second has mainly applied the administrative policy diffusion framework to the specific case of American states. Inspired by institutional theory, this second framework has not been applied to the case of European local governments. Furthermore, each framework has been mobilized by studies examining separately one of the two levels of e-government diffusion: website implementation or website services development. The aim of our paper is to examine if technological and administrative policy innovation factors impact the level of e-government development by municipalities. For that purpose, the paper collected data from a sample of 5,108 municipalities located in the French Grand Est region. JEL Codes: H70, M10

Portable Innovation, Policy Wormholes, and Innovation Diffusion

AbstractThis article explores the effects of city managers' career paths on the diffusion of climate policy innovation among municipal governments in the United States. Using the agent network diffusion (AND) model, the authors hypothesize that local climate policy innovations are portable and that cities may learn from distant jurisdictions to which they are connected through the career paths of managers, a phenomenon termed the “policy wormhole” effect. Employing a dyadic panel data set of more than 400 Florida cities from 2005 to 2010, these hypotheses are tested using dyadic event history analysis. The results support both the portable innovation hypothesis and the policy wormhole hypothesis. Cities can facilitate the diffusion of policy innovations by paying special attention to the recruitment process of city managers.

Analyzing diffusion patterns of big open data as policy innovation in public sector

The Fourth Industrial Revolution begins, and policies are being formulated by economies as well as efforts are being made to meet the needs of the current times. Among other technologies which are part of Fourth Industrial Revolution, big open data is also the part of Pakistan’s digital policy framework. Scholarship is available to explore and examine the determinants of BOD diffusion and adoption, a little literature is available to understand big open data as policy innovation and its diffusion. Therefore, this study drew on Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory and its application to public policy innovation research to examine patterns of BOD policy innovation diffusion at government and public bodies’ level in Pakistan. These patterns are based on policy declaration timing by the governments, policy adoption timing, development of technological applications, and proactively released datasets statistics in public bodies. An Event History Analysis was carried out to examine BOD policy innovation diffusion patterns. Results showed that Federal government is the innovator for the policy innovation diffusion across different governments and subsequent public bodies. It was also found that efficacy ranking of public bodies is quite low in terms of developing BOD technological platforms and proactive release of datasets in large quantities. Therefore, government and policy-makers should focus on effective implementation of big open data policy innovation in Pakistan to equip with 21st century needs.

Who Are Your Neighbors? The Role of Ideology and Decline of Geographic Proximity in the Diffusion of Policy Innovations

States adopt policy innovations within the confines of a dynamic American federal system, but our study of policy diffusion tends to be fairly static. Single‐policy studies incorporate temporal variation, but for only one innovation. Macro‐level analyses examine broad patterns, but often by completely pooling across policy and time. This makes it difficult to identify how diffusion patterns change over time, though Walker's early work explicitly identified such temporal instability. This study specifically examines how neighbor and ideological cues change in importance over time using a dataset of 556 policies adopted from 1960 to 2014. While the findings demonstrate the generality of many key internal, external, and policy‐level determinants of adoption, there is variation in these effects across time. Most important is the relative stability of ideological similarity between adopters and declining influence of contiguous neighbors. Further, political polarization plays a role in conditioning neighbor and ideological cues.

Adopt or Not and Innovation Variation: A Dynamic Comparison Study of Policy Innovation and Diffusion Mechanisms

Policy innovation and diffusion literature mainly focuses on the decision to adopt a new policy, while ignoring the differences among new policies. This study divides the decision-making process of policy innovation diffusion into two phases: in the “innovate or not” phase, governments make the decision to adopt or reject the new policy, while “how to innovate” is the process by which governments formulate specific content for the new policy. A dynamic comparative analysis finds that effects of internal determinants and diffusion mechanisms vary during these two phases and that internal determinants moderate the effects of diffusion mechanisms.

Career cohorts and inter-jurisdictional innovation diffusion: an empirical exploration in China

Previous research on policy innovation diffusion generally focuses on organizational-level mechanisms while disregarding the actor-level diffusion channels. The current study explores how career cohorts among subnational leaders, who are classified based on political ranks and ages, shape inter-jurisdictional innovation diffusion in China. Compared with subnational leaders from different cohorts, those from the same cohort tend to share relatively homogeneous policy information and compete with one another intensely because of the overlapping future career opportunities, thereby creating a particular pattern of policy interdependence across multiple jurisdictions. We perform a directed dyad-year event history analysis to evaluate the diffusion of China’s provincial-level administrative licensing centers from 1999 to 2015. Empirical analysis shows that after controlling for multiple previously identified diffusion mechanisms and internal determinants, the cohort effect among provincial party chiefs significantly increases the likelihood of innovation diffusion in China.

How do diffusion entrepreneurs spread policies? Insights from performance-based financing in Sub-Saharan Africa

There has been growing interest in the diffusion of policy innovations across countries. Research on policy diffusion is characterised by coherent explanatory models that assess the importance of diffusion mechanisms. This study takes a different perspective on diffusion studies and advances public policy literature by introducing the concept of “diffusion entrepreneurs”. These entrepreneurs represent (groups of) individuals, networks, and organisations promoting a certain policy innovation with a view to gain influence. First, drawing from the diffusion literature and linking it to studies investigating policy diffusion in polycentric contexts, we introduce analytical categories to study diffusion entrepreneurs’ key features and actions. Second, to illustrate the analytical value of the concept, we conduct an in-depth analysis of the literature on the diffusion entrepreneurs of health performance-based financing (PBF) in Sub-Saharan Africa. We show how and why this recently diffused policy innovation provides a unique case for demonstrating our conceptual notion: in PBF, a nexus of strongly dedicated diffusion entrepreneurs have strived to induce policy diffusion. Specifically, we explore how the features of PBF diffusion entrepreneurs and their actions affect the outcomes of diffusion processes. Lastly, we reflect on the relevance of our conceptual propositions and offer practical insights to guide future investigations.

The role of policy entrepreneurs in open government data policy innovation diffusion: An analysis of Australian Federal and State Governments

Open government data (OGD) policy differs substantially from the existing Freedom of Information policies. Consequently OGD can be viewed as a policy innovation. Drawing on both innovation diffusion theory and its application to public policy innovation research, we examine Australia's OGD policy diffusion patterns at both the federal and state government levels based on the policy adoption timing and CKAN portal “Organization” and “Category” statistics. We found that state governments that had adopted OGD policies earlier had active policy entrepreneurs (or lead departments/agencies) responsible for the policy innovation diffusion across the different government departments. We also found that their efficacy ranking was relatively high in terms of OGD portal openness when openness is measured by the greater number of datasets proactively and systematically published through their OGD portals. These findings have important implications for the role played by OGD policy entrepreneurs in openly sharing the government-owned datasets with the public.

Immigrant integration beyond national policies? Italian cities’ participation in European city networks

ABSTRACTIn the literature on the local dimension of migration policy-making, one can see an emerging interest in transnational cities networks (TCNs). Networks such as Eurocities can represent policy venues that go beyond the limits of vertical relations between national governments and local authorities to directly lobby European Union (EU) institutions. Futhermore, TCNs can offer opportunities for policy exchange and learning, leading to the diffusion of policy innovations and best practices. However, evidence on the concrete functions played by TCNs is still scarce. By focusing on two highly internationalised Italian cities, Milan and Turin, and by taking an actor-centred perspective, this paper highlights how different categories of policy-makers within the municipal administration think about ‘going Europe’. According to our analysis, TCNs, rather than accomplishing their official instrumental goals, play primarily symbolic functions, such as legitimising local integration policy, building a new city identity and positioning the city vis-à-vis other European cities and EU institutions. Yet, this does not mean that TCNs are ‘useless’, since the symbolic resources they convey can be crucial in creating consensus among stakeholders at the local level or lobbying national authorities.

Policy entrepreneurs and problem framing: The case of climate change

Policy entrepreneurs are energetic actors who work with others in and around policymaking venues to promote significant policy change. After several decades of study, we know a lot about what policy entrepreneurs do, and how to assess their effectiveness in given policymaking contexts. Here, we review common practices of policy entrepreneurs, emphasising their problem framing activities and their role in catalysing large-scale behavioural change related to climate change. We then review what policy entrepreneurs operating in various locations and at different levels of government have begun doing to tackle the climate change challenge. Like others, we contend that policy entrepreneurs will play a vital role in future efforts to address climate change. We conclude by discussing opportunities for new research on policy entrepreneurship, policymaking processes and the diffusion of policy innovations relating to climate change.

Policy Diffusion: A Regime‐sensitive Conceptual Framework

AbstractThe analysis of diffusion processes is an expanding field of research in the social and economic sciences. However, prolific scholarship has highlighted the transnational diffusion of policy innovations, but the insights provided – at least for policies – are limited by a ‘democracy bias’, that is, the focus of most studies is on democracies. This limitation concerns both the empirical scope of most diffusion studies and their theoretical underpinning. Furthermore, the emphasis placed on the diffusion mechanisms has hindered the development of conceptual frameworks that systematically account for political regime characteristics and their role for policy diffusion. To take a first step towards reducing this gap, we propose an alternative conceptual framework. It builds on the existing literature on policy diffusion, but shifts the perspective from the international to the national context. In the subsequent discussion we put forward a theoretical framework that explicitly accounts for the role of political regime types in policy diffusion and shifts the analytical focus from mechanisms to ‘routes’ of diffusion.

Adoption, reinvention and amendment of renewable portfolio standards in the American states

AbstractIt has long been recognised that interstate diffusion of policy innovations is comprised of distinct decisions including adoption, reinvention and amendment. Interstate influences are an important driver of these diffusion processes, but studies to date have not investigated the degree to which external influences vary across these decisions. We theorise that geographical peers will have the largest impact in adoption decisions; that ideological peers are an important source of policy information when states make decisions about “reinventing” innovations adopted by others; and that internal factors will drive the decision by a state to amend a policy. We test these expectations for renewable portfolio standards in the American states between 1996 and 2009. Results suggest that state policymakers emulate peers in adoption or policy design choices, and that internal influences have a stronger influence on amendment decisions than do external influences. These findings further our understanding of policy diffusion and state-by-state relations.

Public Policy Design: How to Learn From Failures

AbstractLearning from the successes and failures of others is a necessity in the field of public sector innovation. The rapid diffusion of policy innovations in different countries has been characterized by a schizophrenic adoption of practices with governments utilizing those considered the “best” as well as those deemed capable of actually providing solutions to policy problems. Nevertheless, the replication of policy innovations in different countries has been met with varying degrees of success. The adoption of the Standard Cost Model in a number of European countries, a methodology to measure red tape and improve the quality of regulation provides an excellent example of this due to it being met with success in some countries while failing inexplicably in others.

A multilevel growth assessment of the diffusion of management innovation nested in state levels: The case of US local economic development programs

The practice of local public programs is an interesting topic for the study of the diffusion of management innovation. Based on previous research on the diffusion of innovative policy in state governments, this research employs a panel design to analyse the passage of management innovation related to local economic development programs. Panel data drawn from 1994, 1999, and 2004 USA International City/County Management Association (ICMA) surveys on economic developments of municipal and county governments were used. Using a multilevel growth curve model, the findings indicated that the diffusion of management innovation (e.g., adoption of economic development plans and performance measures) did not spread as expected between and within the localities sampled, even if management innovation has become a widespread practice in federal and state governments. However, our estimates found that the diffusion factors (e.g., internal determinants, learning, and competitiveness) contributed to the adoption of a performance measure and to an economic development plan to retain and attract local businesses and to drive economic growth. Using a panel design (rather than a cross-sectional study) to look at the changes of adoption of management innovation, this research examined the diffusion of policy innovations in local management. State factors are found to have an impact on local practices in the USA.