Policy transfer and local government performance improvement regimes

There is a well established literature on intergovernmental and cross-national learning, which includes analyses of policy transfer (e.g. Bennett 1997; Dolowitz and Marsh 1996, 2000), policy convergence (e.g. Bennett 1991; Hoberg 2001; Holzinger and Knill 2005), policy diffusion (e.g. Balla 2001; Berry and Berry 1990; Walker 1969) and lesson drawing (Rose 1993). Much of the existing analysis, particularly in relation to policy transfer, is theoretical and evidence is often anecdotal or circumstantial (Bennett 1997; Pierson 2003). Empirical work is usually derived from either a small number of case studies, which use qualitative approaches to study policy transfer between one or two states, or large-N studies, which use quantitative methodologies to study policy diffusion and convergence across large numbers of countries (Cook 2008; Dolowitz 2001).