ABSTRACT
When looking at empirical studies on policy convergence, it is striking that there are different schools of thought which employ the term ‘convergence’. They come from different academic backgrounds, apply both different theoretical approaches and concepts as well as diverse explanatory variables for convergence. Given the widespread popularity of this research topic, it may seem appealing to review the literature that focuses on causal factors. However, as in comparative studies in general, ensuring the comparability of the outcomes is a major problem (Feick 1992). We argue that this is particularly the case for empirical convergence literature. Therefore, trying to detect a ‘common ground’ that allows for an overall judgement deserves equal attention in a review article. We attempt to pinpoint the main factors that allow or hinder comparability between various studies on policy convergence.
