ABSTRACT
Conventional approaches to policy transfer have neglected resistance to transfer. That neglect is based on five key assumptions: (1) transfer is instrumental and consists largely of techniques or policy instruments, (2) transfer is neutral, without significant impacts on the distribution of power, (3) transfer is improvement, (4) transfer channels policies that have been successful, from best practice models, and (5) transfer is incremental. The paper outlines five counter propositions that could form the basis for a new research agenda in the study of policy transfer: transfer is often about paradigm shifts; it may disrupt existing configurations of power; it increasingly is about the transfer of “public bads” such as austerity; it draws on somewhat discredited models (e.g., the EU); and however innocuous each transferred instrument might be, in the end their accumulation is sometimes seen as an assault on life-worlds. Taken together, these factors often generate resistance and attempts to either block or undermine transfer. These dynamics may be more important in the contemporary period, and deserve more careful and sustained research.
