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Policy Convergence (policy + convergence)
Selected AbstractsInternational patterns of environmental policy change and convergenceENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 2 2005Per-Olof Busch Abstract The article gives an empirical overview of the international spread of 22 environmental policy innovations. The policy innovations examined in the article include administrative institutions (e.g. environmental ministries, scientific advisory bodies), laws (e.g. soil protection laws, packaging waste laws), instruments of environmental policy integration (e.g. national environmental policy plans, environmental impact assessment), energy taxes and eco-labels. On this empirical basis, recurring patterns in the global spread of environmental policy innovations are identified and linked to specific causal mechanisms through which this change occurs. In particular, the paper demonstrates how and to what extent non-obligatory diffusion, legal harmonization and coercive imposition matter as mechanisms of global environmental policy convergence. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] The Bologna Process: From a European Law PerspectiveEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 2 2010Sacha Garben The Bologna Process, an intergovernmental process of voluntary policy convergence towards a common higher education structure, poses several concerns from a European law perspective. The Bologna Process takes place outside the institutional framework of the EU, while there would have been legal competence to enact the content of the Bologna Declaration as a Community measure. Hence it could be argued that Member States have straddled the borders of loyal cooperation by avoiding the institutional framework of the EC with its built-in checks and balances. They have obstructed the Community in the attainment of its tasks, which stands in tense relation to Article 10 EC. Moreover, there exist several other objections against the Bologna Process, particularly in terms of democracy, transparency and efficiency. The Bologna Process resembles a deal done in a smoke-filled room, and its voluntary character combined with a lack of coordination prevents its effective implementation. [source] Ideas and Environmental Standard-Setting: A Comparative Study of Regulation of the Pulp and Paper IndustryGOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2002Kathryn Harrison This article examines the policy responses of Canada, Sweden, and the United States to the discovery of dioxins in pulp mill effluents and paper products, with particular attention to the impact of science and the scientific community on national environmental standards. Important areas of policy divergence were found, despite considerable scientific consensus among environmental scientists in the three jurisdictions, as the potential force of shared causal knowledge was undermined by competing domestic interests and different institutional contexts for decision-making. This analysis challenges the emphasis of the epistemic community literature on the role of scientists in promoting policy convergence, underscoring the importance of the interaction of ideas, interest group politics, and institutions in public policy-making. [source] Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy-MakingGOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2000David P. Dolowitz In recent years there has been a growing body of literature within political science and international studies that directly and indirectly uses, discusses and analyzes the processes involved in lesson-drawing, policy convergence, policy diffusion and policy transfer. While the terminology and focus often vary, all of these studies are concerned with a similar process in which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political setting (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political setting. Given that this is a growing phenomenon, it is something that anyone studying public policy needs to consider. As such, this article is divided into four major sections. The first section briefly considers the extent of, and reasons for, the growth of policy transfer. The second section then outlines a framework for the analysis of transfer. From here a third section presents a continuum for distinguishing between different types of policy transfer. Finally, the last section addresses the relationship between policy transfer and policy "failure." [source] Harmonising Higher Education and Innovation Policies: Canada from an International PerspectiveHIGHER EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2009Marie Lavoie Abstract This paper focuses on the relevance of harmonising higher education and innovation strategies in the context of fostering economic growth, illustrated by the particular weak point in the case of Canada. The present-day market for highly-skilled labour is global and therefore increasingly porous. A government that wishes to avoid losing its highly-skilled workers to countries that can provide more attractive conditions must aim at investing simultaneously in tertiary education and science and engineering infrastructure. Ideally, supply (higher education) and demand side (innovation) policies would interact in a balanced way. Canada is located at the two extreme ends of investment in higher education and innovation and will be compared to other OECD countries. The paper concludes that seeking policy convergence in innovation and higher education with leading countries is not sufficient to reach growth and can produce disappointing results for talented people whose career expectations may remain unfulfilled. It is therefore crucial for a country to develop higher education and innovation ,in harmony' with the global context and also to achieve harmony between other policies and institutions in its own national context. [source] Globalization and Prison Privatization: Why Are Most of the World's For-Profit Adult Prisons to Be Found in the American South?INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 3 2007Phillip J. Wood For a generation, students of comparative public policy and international politics have argued that global market discipline and the increasing mobility of international "best practices" have given rise to policy convergence at the global level. This paper uses the American case to investigate some of the forces thought to have given rise to the spread of private prisons. It finds that while there are prisons in a number of countries, the evidence of convergence is thin and seems to suggest that the core of the prison privatization is in the American South. It then examines several theories,the political economy of the prison boom and overcrowding, globalization theory, the politics of the new right and the idea of a "prison-industrial complex",that have been used to explain prison privatization and the extent to which they are consistent with the empirical pattern. Each takes us some way to understanding that pattern, but none can provide a clear theoretical mapping. [source] Europeanising Antitrust: British Competition Policy Reform and Member State ConvergenceBRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 4 2006Gregory Baldi This article argues that the patterns of competition policy convergence in EU member states challenge formulations of the process of Europeanisation and specifically the notion that the likelihood of policy harmonisation is a function of the pre-existing compatibility or ,fit' between national and supranational policies. In the case of antitrust, the member states in which existing arrangements were least compatible with the European policy were generally the first to adopt the European competition enforcement regime, while Britain, in spite of having an established,albeit dysfunctional,competition regime since the 1940s, was the last of the medium- and large-sized members to move towards harmonising its antitrust rules. The article finds that the pre-existence of an antitrust system actually made harmonisation more difficult for Britain by allowing British industrial interests to develop preferences for the domestic system, which stymied attempts to Europeanise British policy. [source] | ||||||||||