Interdependent decision-making as argumentation Viewed from the perspective of policy diffusion research, studying the political debates in which national policies are decided may seem pointless. If the actual behavior of a nation-state is considered as proof of a “causal mechanism” such as coercion, it seems irrelevant what the actors think or how decisions are justified. This is indeed the stance taken toward actorhood in the policy diffusion tradition. For instance, the neoinstitutionalist world polity theory emphasizes that individual and institutional actors and their identities are constituted by world culture, which is why actors unthinkingly enact global models and scripts. Such models comprise world culture, the spread of which is considered as the reason for the remarkable isomorphism found in the modern world (Meyer, Boli, Thomas, and Ramirez, 1997; Meyer, Krücken, and Drori, 2009). According to world polity scholars, these models are rooted in nineteenth-century Western culture but since globalized, carried by the infrastructure of world society, and expressed in the multiple ways particular groups relate to universal ideals (Lechner and Boli, 2005, p. 6). Local politics is however interesting and important from the domestication perspective, which regards global changes as outcomes of contingent historical processes. Instead of considering world culture as some kind of gyroscope that pervades the world and makes actors and organizations increasingly isomorphic, the domestication framework stresses that the turns individual actors and states and the world society as a whole take are not dictated by ready-made scripts. Rather, it is important to make a distinction between the already globalized basic world cultural values and principles (such as science, equality or the national interest), institutionalized in the nation-state system, and the global spread of ever-new fashions, standards, and catchwords to which nation-states adapt in their policy-making. The domestication of such conceptual innovations does not mean that nation-states become increasingly similar, but makes national decision-making interdependent so that national paths are synchronized with each other. This perspective makes a corrective to the underdeveloped notion of agency and the rudimentary concept of culture within world polity theory. Since the some 200 nation-states are institutionally more or less copies of each other with a government, ministries and many other private and public institutions, it is obvious that they comprise a cultural system. However, contrary to assumptions in many texts representing world polity theory, it does not mean that world culture is a unified set of values, and scripts deduced from them. Rather, as a detailed treatment of the ideals, principles, and underlying premises used in

argumentation will show, people’s shared values are mutually contradictory so that moral dilemmas are the rule rather than an exception (MacIntyre, 1981). Even if participants reach an agreement about the stress laid on potentially conflicting values such as individual freedom and equality, they may well disagree on how to translate the principles into practice. It is also important to stress that studying justifications used in decisionmaking does not equate to scrutinizing people’s motives. Since political decisions are made in public forums, with the parliament as the final and most important one, justifications tell us what is politically correct or morally appropriate. From the constructionist and neoinstitutionalist perspective employed here, the fact that we have no access to the ultimate reasons or innermost motives of decision-makers is not a problem but rather an important starting point. Public justifications are interesting precisely because they reflect the culture of world polity. We may well speculate on the politicians’ real motives and underlying interests, but the public justifications are considered as rational and appropriate, in concert with the virtues that the world cultural system honors. Besides, world culture should not be conceived as containing only generally honored values and principles. It also comprises shared knowledge about less virtuous motives such as individual gains or narrow group interests, the expression of which is not considered appropriate or a successful strategy by those who promote a new policy. Hence policy-makers need to appear sincere in defending appropriate values and motives against others’ healthy suspicions. As world polity theory stresses, in that sense world culture constitutes actors (Meyer, 2010), but yet it leaves a lot of latitude for local differences. Therefore it is even more fascinating that nation-states end up synchronizing national trajectories with those of other countries. This is not only because world culture permeates local realities; it is also because states and individual actors keep a keen eye on what is taking place in other states and react to them in their policies. This perspective on the synchronization of national trajectories puts worldwide models in a new light. While the mainstream policy diffusion research treats policy models as objective givens, the spread of which to different countries constitutes the default research design, this perspective emphasizes that local “policy entrepreneurs” (Béland, 2005; Dolowitz and Marsh, 2000; Hulme, 2006), rather than exogenous models, are the primary actors through which national trajectories are synchronized. From this perspective, domestic actors do not just passively react to exogenous models or pressures, but rather advance their own views and interests by directing their compatriots’ attention to what is going on elsewhere, constructing policies adopted in other countries as a distinct model and presenting evidence of their success (Acharya, 2004; Alasuutari, 2013; Callon, 1986; Cook, 2008; Cortell and Davis, 2000; Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996; Evans and Davies, 1999), hence translating global ideas to local contexts (Czarniawska-Joerges and Sevón, 1996, 2005). Furthermore, when the domestic debates related to new legislation are studied as an interface through which changes taking place in different nation-states may be synchronized, it becomes clear that these debates are seldom about enacting a particular, narrowly defined

policy or model. Rather, they are about a problem or a new item introduced to the national political agenda; a problem whose treatment in the domestic context means that the national agenda and discourse in the area are synchronized with those in other nation-states. The world cultural system thus comprises two basic aspects. On the one hand world culture consists of shared assumptions, values and principles, stemming from and guiding the institutional order of world polity. They are used as premises in justifying policies in different organizational contexts, for instance in national parliaments. On the other hand there are new ideas and models circulating throughout the globe, the construction and promotion of which also appeal to the shared premises. Although permeated by the same world culture, there seem to be differences in the way in which national trajectories are synchronized with those of other countries. It could be hypothesized that in some countries it is commonplace to appeal to the models adopted in other countries or to the ranking of the country in international comparison as justification for a reform, whereas in others such references are rare. This means that reforms are justified by other means, for instance by referring to an alarming development or to statistical data about inequality in the country in question. It does not necessarily mean that such nation-states pay no attention to international developments; it only means that such comparisons are not actively used as grounds for reforms in public discussion. We could talk about differing “political cultures”—that is, local sets of default expectations about valid and acceptable modes of argumentation. For instance, the US political culture seems to be less sympathetic to justifications appealing to what is taking place in other countries. Such reluctance to learn from the experience of others could be attributed to the paradigm of US exceptionalism,2 according to which the USA is so different from other countries that models adopted by other countries are hardly applicable to it. As expert interviewees in Martens and Dobbins’ (2010) study of American education policy say, the image predominates that the USA is somehow different from the rest of the world and that is why it is not fair or reasonable to compare it to other countries or to expect it to learn from other systems. Furthermore, it could be hypothesized that US political culture is less approving of references to other countries because in the USA it is commonly assumed that it is the leading country. Therefore, the fact that a policy has originated elsewhere may not be considered as a strong justification for adopting the same model because there is a conviction that the US model is more rational and efficient. Although the paradigm of American exceptionalism is an old one, thus far it has not been tested empirically. This makes the current study particularly important because the data allow us to analyze the differences and similarities in the ways in which new legislation in justified in the six countries compared. More generally, since these six countries represent two language areas and differ in their affluence and in their economic and cultural integration with the rest of the world (see Table 2.1), it is interesting to see whether those differences seem to have a bearing on justifications used in political decision-making.