ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a case study of the introduction of the International Labour Organization (ILO)'s child labour policy in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. Employing a transnational approach along with the policy translation perspective, it explores how a global social policy idea was transmitted and institutionalized in a post-Soviet country. Challenging the assumptions built into policy diffusion and policy transfer approaches, an argument is made for the use of the policy translation approach for transnational social policy analysis. After laying out the sociohistorical and cultural context shaping the policy transmission and implementation, the chapter considers the lens of the modified welfare diamond to take a closer look into the roles of four policy actors: transnational actors; the state; market actors; and domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Without minimizing the inequality in power, resources, and institutional legitimacy among policy actors, the policy translation approach reveals other modes of power located at the intersection of agency and discourse and exercised by transnational policy actors.
