LIST OF PANELS

The policy mobility literature (policy transfer, diffusion, etcetera) has generated rich insights regarding the conditions, mechanisms and processes of international policy transmission in diverse fields such as economic policy, environmental policy or gender policy. The main focus in the literature has been on successful transfers and “translation” or local adaptation to domestic institutional configurations. While there is a strong policy transfer success bias in the literature, reasons for failure in individual countries have also been addressed. The role of private actors such as international consultancies or global think tanks in policy transfer have lately been recognized alongside public actors, which challenges the traditional methodological nationalism of modelling “export” and “import with local adaption/translation” of policy transfers. What is still missing in the literature, however, is work on more ambitious efforts to contest policy mobility by way of transnational efforts to obstruct, roll back or redirect policies travelling across borders. In addition to a novel focus on policy transfer contestation we aim to push the policy mobility conversation to include (global) policy transfer modification, attenuation and “failure” due to broader and stronger resistance against transfer efforts operating within and across borders. A fresh focus on transnational actor and power constellations, advocacy alliances and discourse coalitions, as well as policy field conditions and the range of objectives, is needed to better understand the reasons for both success and failure of policy mobility. Success and failure of course also depend on normative perspective: If actors succeed to secure tax privileges or investor protection in many countries, trade unions and social movement activists may consider counter campaigns (like ATTAC’s Tobin tax) much like fossil corporations and their allies in think tanks try to undermine ambitious climate action. It is well known that climate denial campaigns used the playbook developed to prevent stronger regulation of smoking, but we do know much about other dimensions of learning from past experience of friend or foe.

Pal, Leslie A. (2020) Policy transfer and resistance: Proposals for a new research agenda. In: O. Porto de Oliveira, C. Osorio Gonnet, S. Montero, and C. K. da S. Leite (eds.) Latin America and Policy Diffusion: From Import to Export. (New York: Routledge 2020), pp. 183-201.

Plehwe, Dieter (2022) Think tanks and the politics of climate change. In: Donald E. Abelson/Christopher J. Rastrick (Hg.): Handbook on Think Tanks in Public Policy, S. 150-165. Handbooks on Research in Public Policy . DOI: 10.4337/9781789901849.00022

Stone, Diane, Leslie A. Pal, and Osmany Porto de Oliveira (2021) Private consultants and policy advisory organizations: a blind spot on policy transfer research. In: Osmany Porto de Oliveira (ed.) Handbook of Policy Transfer, Diffusion and Circulation. (Cheltenham: Edgar Elgar 2021), pp. 173–195.

This call for papers on “strategy mobility” in opposition to policy transfer efforts seeks work focusing on policy pre-emption, policy roll back and policy shaping regarding the original policy transfer agendas. We invite case studies of such efforts in climate policy making in particular, but also in other areas that display strong and lasting policy contestation not limited to national settings, possibly drawing on experiences of like-minded social forces in other countries and previous joint efforts of counter-campaigning across borders (“strategy mobility”), such as in the areas of gender mainstreaming and reproductive rights, international trade and investment clauses, informational self-determination or Indigenous rights. Who are the architects of strategic counter campaigns in the corporate sector and in civil society to obstruct or shape policy developments across borders? When and how do private actors ally with public policy actors to advance their cause? What are the strategies and repertoires of action that actors develop to prevent or roll back policy transfer? Are these strategies and repertoires developed from scratch, or are they learned, shared and emulated, based on earlier policy contestations? Where and how are strategies rolled out?