ABSTRACT
It is impli cit to the concerns of this book that gener al isa tions about the policy process aim to apply across coun tries, and that there fore ques tions must be explored, through compar at ive studies, about the extent to which this is in fact the case. This is partic u larly so for many of the insti tu tional theor ies considered in Chapter 5, with the further implic a tion that if coun tries differ because of their partic u lar insti tu tional config ur a tions, then their policy processes and policy outputs are likely to differ as well. Whilst it is easier to show that polit ical systems diverge rather than converge, there is, never the less, a sense in which insti tu tional theory, at the very least, needs compar ison to demon strate how diver gence occurs. This chapter there fore aims at briefly present ing compar at ive approaches that examine policy differ ences and suggest how insti tu tional differ ences may help to explain these.
