Introduction: Is Policy Transfer Rational Policy-making?

Policy transfer is a generic concept that refers to a process in which knowledge about institutions, policies or delivery systems at one sector or level of governance is used in the development of institutions, policies or delivery systems at another sector or level of governance. Public organizations in both developed and developing countries do not always possess the expertise to tackle the problems they confront and increasingly look outside the organization to other governments or non-governmental organizations for the answers to problems. The recent literature analysing policy convergence, policy diffusion, policy learning and lesson drawing assesses the nature of different forms of policy transfer from the perspective of a host of disciplines ranging from domestic and international political science to comparative politics. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book.