LIST OF PANELS

This panel’s goal is to leverage our understanding of policy diffusion encapsulating the processes by which policy-making in one government affects policy-making in other governments (Gilardi et al., 2021). Despite generations of research, we are still short of knowledge about what policy diffusion exactly is, why and how it occurs and can be studied. There are several reasons for this, beginning with the intrinsic complexity of policy. First generation studies until 1980 managed to operationalize policy diffusion clearly by emphasizing adoption of policy from one jurisdiction to another as key in the process(es), thus setting it apart from other well-established concepts in policy sciences including policy transfer and circulation (de Oliveira, 2021; Soremi, 2016). Initially, the essence of policy was mainly limited to single instruments and ideas as well as closely interwoven with innovation and success in change. Today, however, policy mixes and/in failure are widely recognized as inherent to governments’ work, thus urging to (re)-conceptualize (their) diffusion (Howlett & Rayner, 2008; Volden, 2016). In their turn, second generation studies of policy diffusion prior to 2000 have identified and thoroughly compared its basic mechanisms. Up until today, imitation and learning have been studied the most whilst others were left more out of analysis including competition, coercion and harmonization as well as diffuse networks as more communicative mechanisms (Danaeefard & Mahdizadeh, 2022; Shipan & Volden, 2008). Moreover, what happens when multiple mechanisms coexist? Do these mechanisms complement or inhibit each other's effects? In studies of the third and recent generation, theorizing has already come a way. Leader-laggard, convergence and other models were constructed, thus primarily covering the so-called external determinant factors to explain diffusion processes in governments (Berry & Berry, 2018). Still, the long-term neglect of typical factors that are internal to the adopting organization calls upon further theorization and also left us with a methodological challenge. After all, quantitative large-N studies ruled the policy diffusion field for long and should be supplemented towards a plurality of methods including thick descriptions, policy narrative case studies and qualitative, small-N studies based on in-depth interviews with elite policymakers and frontline workers as well (Howlett & Rayner, 2008). Moreover, institutional or process designs (e.g., performance management) may not only spread across jurisdictions but also across policy domains, highlighting the need for further research on cross-domain policy diffusion.

Firing these what, why and how (to study) -questions upon policy diffusion, several research challenges thus come to the fore. Its underlying processes are complicated and are likely to become even more so. After all, whilst operating in a poly-crisis environment, governments of all levels/sectors/countries are pushed to constant policy evolution and change today. Diffusion processes can then hinder or facilitate their innovation and are essential for moving forward efficiently, effectively and democratically all across the globe.

The goal of this panel is to further explore how and under what conditions policies are diffused and spread. The key question underpinning the panel is: how can we better understand and explain diffusion processes in the public sector?

References

Berry, F. S., & Berry, W. D. (2018). Innovation and diffusion models in policy research. Theories of the policy process, 253-297.

Danaeefard, H., & Mahdizadeh, F. (2022). Public policy diffusion: A scoping review. Public Organization Review, 22(2), 455-477.

Gilardi, F., Shipan, C. R., & Wüest, B. (2021). Policy diffusion: The issue‐definition stage. American Journal of Political Science, 65(1), 21-35.

Howlett, M., & Rayner, J. (2008). Third generation policy diffusion studies and the analysis of policy mixes: Two steps forward and one step back?. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, 10(4), 385-402.

de Oliveira, O. P. (Ed.). (2021). Handbook of policy transfer, diffusion and circulation. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Shipan, C. R., & Volden, C. (2008). The mechanisms of policy diffusion. American journal of political science, 52(4), 840-857.

Soremi, T. (2016). Policy Transfer: Revisiting Concept and Process. International Journal of Arts & Sciences, 9(3), 377.

Volden, C. (2016). Failures: Diffusion, learning, and policy abandonment. State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 16(1), 44-77.

This panel addresses policy diffusion as a key dynamic in current policy-making and change across the globe. Policy instruments, ideas, practices, … are mobile; they spread and nest themselves across the globe. However, policy diffusion processes are not easily engineered nor a simple product of so-called “happenstance”. Their nature is much more complicated and deserves further research and exploration. We therefore welcome papers that contribute to conceptualizing and theorizing the essence and influencing factors of the diffusion processes, offer thick single-case and/or comparative studies to grasp their mechanisms in-depth, and/or propose innovative models as well as methods for such studies.

In particular, we are interested in papers that cover one and preferably more of the following ambitions:

·        Clearly conceptualizing policy diffusion, thus setting it apart from other processes/dynamics of policy change/evolution/development;

·        Identifying conditional factors of an internal organizational nature, next to external ones that can hinder or facilitate policy diffusion;

·        Exploring the determinants or scope of cross-domain policy diffusion;

·        Exploring diffuse networks, AI technologies and other public sector developments … as potential drivers/mechanisms for policy diffusion, being formally institutionalized or not;

·        Explaining resistance to diffusion/adoption of policies;

·        Clarifying policy diffusion in interrelation with the overall policy cycle/process and related conditional features such as place and time as well as with well-established theories and models in policy sciences such as MSF or ACF;

·        Working across the policy sciences and/or with other disciplines to better understand the essence and dynamics of policy diffusion processes;

·        Offering practical recommendations for policy diffusion engineers in government or elsewhere;

·        …

We intend to publish papers presented in a special issue of a journal or as an edited book collection. We propose to host this panel onsite.