LIST OF PANELS

Policy transfer has become an important framework for understanding how policy ideas, models, methods and tools travel. The “travelling” process is not without contention and conflict and resistance, but it is an important way of understanding why policy models being adopted and promoted in Afghanistan look similar to those in Albania and Alabama. International organizations – governmental (e.g., World Bank, OECD, EU, development banks), non-governmental (e.g., Transparency International, Open Society Foundations, think tanks), and private (e.g., professional associations, consulting firms) – are all engaged in the complex process of policy transfer, particularly in transitional situations, state-building, and accession scenarios. However, despite some useful macro-models of how transfer can occur, we know relatively little about the complex micro-dynamics on the ground. For example, in any given “transfer theatre” such as a developing state, there are a multitude of transfer agents at work, sometimes competing, sometimes cooperating, and a multitude of recipient agencies with their own agendas. The dynamics of the interaction of these players determines how the transfer plays out – what is adopted, how it is adapted, and often whether it is successful or not in any real sense. Understanding these micro-dynamics often depends on mixed method approaches that bring anthropological, sociological, and political techniques to bear in building a coherent narrative of events and outcomes. This panel invites papers on the micro-mechanics of policy transfer, highlighting specific and empirically grounded case studies to push the analysis and frameworks forward, with theoretically relevant findings. Some sample questions to be explored: How do “transfer contexts” get shaped at the micro-level? Which ones are more or less receptive to new policy ideas and what determines receptivity? What kind of “expertise” do governments expect or want? And what kind of expertise is effectively supplied by the different international actors?  Do these international bodies try to adapt their methods to the context of the countries concerned? How do multiple players on the ground in a given situation interact, competitively and cooperatively? How do domestic actors include international standards in their reform strategies (“translation”, “interpretation”, rejection, oversight)? What facilitates and what impedes transfer?

Policy transfer has become an important framework for understanding how policy ideas, models, methods and tools travel. The “travelling” process is not without contention and conflict and resistance, but it is an important way of understanding why policy models being adopted and promoted in Afghanistan look similar to those in Albania and Alabama. International organizations – governmental (e.g., World Bank, OECD, EU, development banks), non-governmental (e.g., Transparency International, Open Society Foundations, think tanks), and private (e.g., professional associations, consulting firms) – are all engaged in the complex process of policy transfer, particularly in transitional situations, state-building, and accession scenarios. However, despite some useful macro-models of how transfer can occur, we know relatively little about the complex micro-dynamics on the ground. For example, in any given “transfer theatre”, there are a multitude of transfer agents at work, sometimes competing, sometimes cooperating, and a multitude of recipient agencies with their own agendas. The dynamics of the interaction of these players determines how the transfer plays out – what is adopted, how it is adapted, and often whether it is successful or not in any real sense. Understanding these micro-dynamics often depends on mixed method approaches that bring anthropological, sociological, and political techniques to bear in building a coherent narrative of events and outcomes. The scientific relevance of the panel (with, we hope, several sessions) will be as follows: Case studies of policy transfer in different contexts. We hope to get papers dealing with the EU, developed states, transitional states, state-building contexts, etc. During the sessions, the opportunity to compare the cases and begin to draw insights into how different contexts affect the transfer process. Attract papers on transfer agents that have to date been hardly discussed in the literature – private governance consulting firms, academic institutions Examine the interaction effects of different transfer agents operating in the same “theatre” We will mobilize our respective networks to solicit serious paper proposals, and will negotiate with the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis for a special issue, and with either Palgrave or Routledge for an edited collection.