Successful Policy Transfer Research Articles

What Matters for the Successful Policy Transfer? Empirical Evidence From South Korea’s Knowledge Sharing Program(KSP)

What Matters for the Successful Policy Transfer? Empirical Evidence From South Korea’s Knowledge Sharing Program(KSP)

The Nordic Connection: The impact of the Finnish basic income pilot on the Australian basic income debate

This article examines the impact of recent European basic income experiments on the re-emergence of basic income in Australian public policy and political debate. We argue that while basic income experiments in general have garnered some attention in Australia, the Finnish basic income pilot has been particularly significant. We trace this influence back to the historical tendency of sections of the Australian Left to view Nordic industrial and social policy as an aspirational model, and to the stronger institutional and interpersonal connections between Nordic and Australian policy communities. Finally, we emphasise how the recent history of imposing welfare policy experiments on Indigenous communities complicates the perception and prospects of basic income pilots in Australia and the potential for successful policy transfer.

The role of culture in policy transfer. A pilot study for transferring European models of peer review in vocational schools to China

To achieve a successful policy transfer from one country to another, knowledge is required about the framework conditions of the country to which the policy is transferred. An important framework condition to consider is cultural context. Therefore, this paper uses a combination of cultural definitions which consider culture as a driver for both the interpretation of its members and for the communicative and interactive behaviour within a community. This contribution presents a cultural concept to inform policy transfer from a European context to China. Chinese philosophical approaches such as Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, as well as the political history of China, are used to identify individual perspectives within a community that depends, among others. A pilot study for testing the peer review process in vocational education and training will also help build a better understanding of how adjustments, transfer errors and side effects can be culturally explained.

Policy Transfer Through Return Migration: Lesson From Indonesian Returnees

This article investigates the extent to which policy transfer activities facilitated by Indonesian skilled returnees after finishing their studies in Germany can support various local actors in accelerating developmental progress in their homeland. By using the five-dimensional policy transfer (Evans, 2017), this study found that returnees strengthen the working environment by promoting exchange of knowledge, improving current work methods, and advocating for most common forms of transfer including knowledge sharing, experiences, and networks that they had while abroad. The research also found that most cases of successful policy transfer adoption were characterized by hybridization of new ideas with existing policy and institutional framework in organizations that participated in the program.

Successful policy transfer and public sector reform in developing countries

The scope and intensity of policy transfer has increased in recent years as developing countries have drawn on public sector reform programmes based on new public management practices originally designed in western democracies. However, there is mounting evidence that to be successful, reform programmes must be adapted to local contexts. This article demonstrates that national government control of policy transfer can enable localisation which in turn enhances the effectiveness of public reforms. Analysis of the Position Classification System – which sought to enhance accountability, efficiency and professionalism in the civil service in Bhutan – highlights two conditions that enable domestic control of the policy transfer process: strong internal motivation for engaging in policy transfer and the establishment or adaptation of institutions to manage processes of policy transfer. We conclude that when these conditions apply, a developing country can engage in successful voluntary policy transfer and retain control of the process.

An exploration of policy knowledge-seeking on high-volume, low-carbon transport: findings from expert interviews in selected African and South-Asian countries

This paper shares one element of research undertaken for the UK Department for International Development's (DFID) Applied Research Programme on High Volume Transport (HVT)11See Appendix C for definition of High-Volume Low Carbon Transport in nine low-income countries (LICs) in Africa and South-Asia. The research was conducted under the Low Carbon Transport Theme. It examines policy knowledge-seeking among transport researchers and practitioners in a subgroup of nine Sub-Saharan African and South Asian countries; these experts are already convinced of the need for HVT measures and are seeking knowledge regarding successful policy-transfer in order to accelerate transport decarbonisation.The policies in the countries investigated in this study recognise the need to reduce transport emissions, but this is rarely the measure that drives mobility interventions. Meeting the Paris Agreement targets will depend on whether low carbon, sustainable transport is rapidly and broadly implemented.Interviews with key informants include questions relating to motivations for seeking policy knowledge; the key policy knowledge that interviewees seek in order to shift country priorities or accelerate low-carbon development; and how best to share and access appropriate and relevant knowledge. These questions are drawn from the policy-transfer theory and processes described in the literature.Findings from the interviews suggest that key informants are aware of the prevalence and impact of uncritical, unsuccessful policy transfer, given their experiences with new transport measures in their countries; this is a significant lesson-learned. The value of context-specific transport policy transfer rather than off-the-shelf solutions is recognised by key informants, and appropriate policy knowledge is actively sought. A research gap exists to document an evidence-base regarding the influences and mechanisms that lead to successful low-carbon transport transfer processes in low-income countries.

Policy transfer or policy churn? Institutional isomorphism and neoliberal convergence in the transport sector

While the features of successful policy transfer are well known, there is some evidence that increase in policy transfer is associated with convergence of not just policies but institutional and organisational forms. Institutional isomorphism is often a result of copying organisational form as a way of securing legitimacy rather than seeking successful policy outcomes. It is also influenced by the convergence of the neoliberal paradigm over recent decades which decreases the likelihood of selecting or implementing disruptive policies. This paper interrogates policy transfer as both a normative process of sharing ‘best practice’ and a mimetic process of copying organisational form in order to secure legitimacy. There is a danger that, rather than focusing on good implementation of existing policies, new policies are continually sought, which is often encouraged by isomorphic institutional forms driven by political motivations to reduce public responsibilities for unsuccessful or unpopular policies. The aim of this paper is to develop the conceptual tools for analysis of how and when policy transfer becomes policy churn and the role of institutionally isomorphic tendencies in this transition.

EVALUATING THE CROSS-NATIONAL TRANSFERABILITY OF POLICIES: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

When seeking to harness entrepreneurship and enterprise culture, governments often seek to transfer policy measures successful in another country to their own. Until now however, governments have often lacked a practical evaluation framework for selecting policy measures and then appraising the feasibility and transferability of such measures. The aim of this paper is to fill that gap. Reviewing the literature on cross-national policy transfer, this paper provides a pragmatic evaluation framework for selecting policy measures and appraising their feasibility and transferability from one country to another. This details how successful policy transfer and cross-national policy learning must be informed by prospective policy analysis and testing the features of the specific policy initiative against the specifics of the national context and circumstances, and then establishes the criteria and processes through which potential policy adopters can identify promising policies used elsewhere to tackle similar problems in their own country and assess their 'goodness of fit' prior to transfer to national realities.

Transcalar networks for policy transfer and implementation: the case of global health policies for malaria and HIV/AIDS in Cameroon

This paper explores the nature and type of policy transfer promoted by global health partnerships to facilitate access to medication in Cameroon and the associated implementation challenges. Using concepts from policy transfer, multi-level governance and the politics of scale, the paper conceptualizes the social spaces (global-national-local linkages) through which global health policies are negotiated as transcalar networks. The framework is used to analyse policy documents, technical and media reports and journal articles focusing on two global health partnerships (GHPs)-Roll Back Malaria and the Accelerating Access Initiative-in Cameroon. Both GHPs helped to create the national Malaria and HIV/AIDS programmes in Cameroon, respectively. Global policies are negotiated through dialogue processes involving global, national and local partners who constitute the national HIV/AIDS and malaria committees. Successful policy transfer is evident from the consensual nature of decision-making. Analysis of policy implementation reveals that GHPs offer a 'technical fix' based on specific medical intervention programmes with a relatively limited focus on disease prevention. The GHP approach imposes new governance challenges due to policy resistance strategies (strategic interests of international agencies and country-specific challenges). Evidence of this is seen in the existence of several overlapping programmes and initiatives that distort accountability and governance mechanisms defined by the national committees. Finally, the implications of these challenges for achieving access to medication are discussed.

Urban Transport Policy Transfer in Central and Eastern Europe

European Territorial Cooperation is one important context in which partners from across the whole of Europe meet and learn from each other. Naturally, the involvement of partners from Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries in this process is increasing as a consequence of the expansion of Europe, particularly the accession of ten new EU member states in 2004, and two more in 2007. Various examples can be found where CEE countries are seeking to catch up politically and economically by drawing lessons from policies in more developed countries. The uncertainties of policy-making in some of these countries have made policy transfer a particularly attractive option, as politicians see it as the quickest solution to many problems without having to reinvent the wheel. This paper focuses on international policy-transfer and lesson-drawing, looking specifically at how urban transport concepts and ideas have been transferred from Western Europe to two CEE countries. In these cases, the social and economic situations in the “borrowing” and “lending” countries are very different. So too, are the institutional frameworks. As a consequence, successful policy transfer is much more complex than mere copying or emulation. The paper argues that large-scale institutional transformations are neither feasible nor desirable to produce results that benefit cities in CEE countries. Small initiatives with straightforward, comparatively short-term outcomes and moderate budgets often work better and keep momentum going for further steps towards more sustainable urban transport policies and programs.

Policy Transfer in Oceans Governance: Learning Lessons from Australia's Oceans Policy Process

This article examines policy transfer as an important mechanism for policy change in oceans governance. Since it entered into force in 1994, the Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) has obligated signatories to demonstrate that they can effectively manage the resources within their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). This article focuses primarily on the Australian response to fulfill its obligation to the LOSC through the development of Australia’s Oceans Policy (AOP), and the transfer of key policy components to Canadian and New Zealand ocean initiatives. This article argues that government officials (or civil servants/bureaucrats) were essential agents of change who formed networks that contributed to successful policy transfer in oceans management.

Malaysia as model

This article uses a case study of public human resource management (HRM) in Malaysia to explore policy ‘transferability’, proposed as a refinement of Dolowitz and Marsh's policy transfer framework. HRM in the Malaysian civil service is found to be relatively performance-orientated, though that is qualified by the Government's affirmative action policies. Malaysia's approach is attributed to factors that have their roots in Malaysia's history: the pervasive respect for authority, the ethnic mix, its Anglo-Saxon orientation, the successful economy, the National Development Policy of 1990 and the personal role of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed. These factors suggest that public management is both shaped and constrained by its historical roots. The case suggests that successful policy transfer requires an understanding of those roots, especially when there is a significant distance in cultural, political, economic or linguistic terms between the countries transferred from and to.

Learning to Live with Loans? International Policy Transfer and the Funding of Higher Education

Over the last decade or so a number of OECD economies have migrated from providing higher education free at the point of consumption to levying user charges. However, rather than charges for tuition being paid up‐front, contributions have taken the form of income‐contingent loans. Graduates therefore contribute to the costs of their education, after they have graduated and when they are earning. The earliest example of this instrument was in Australia, with the introduction of the Higher Education Contributions Scheme (HECS). This paper argues that following their successful introduction in Australia, income‐contingent loans offer a good example of successful international policy transfer, with elements of that scheme being adopted and modified for use in New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom. The paper reviews the conditions for successful policy transfer and discusses the reasons why the arrangements have not proliferated in non‐OECD countries.