ABSTRACT
The global diffusion of public policies is never just the conduct of rational agents looking for solutions that “work,” but is always embedded in political and institutional interests. In this chapter, I show that dominant theoretical models of policy diffusion from city to city across the globe tend to ignore the role of oligarchic wealth in policy diffusion. Oligarchic diffusion’s defining feature is lack of democratic accountability…. Some of the prevailing diffusion models elide the historically specific political and institutional interests driving the diffusion of neo-liberal policy solutions. Oligarchic diffusion is a dominant mechanism implicit in the other typologies. Fortunately, elite policy diffusion models are not the only game in town. More democratic models of global policy diffusion exist and show promise of better things to come.
