Cross-national Policy Convergence: Concepts, Causes and Empirical Findings

by Knill; Christoph

• ISBN13: 9780415374910
• ISBN10: 041537491X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-07-07
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

A fresh analysis of policy convergences across nations, which identifies their key driving forces. To what extent and in which direction can we empirically observe a convergence of national policies? In which areas and for which patterns of policy is convergence more or less pronounced? This text addresses these central questions with clarity and rigor. With growing economic and institutional interlinkages between nation states, it is often assumed that there is an overall trend towards increasingly similar policies across countries. Comparative research on the domestic impact of globalization and European integration, however, reveals that policy convergence can hardly be considered as a dominant and uniform tendency which can be taken for granted. Although a number of factors have been suggested in order to account for the rather mixed empirical picture, we still have limited knowledge about the causes and conditions of cross-national policy convergence. In particular, the central mechanisms and conditions affecting both degree and level of cross-national policy convergence are yet not well understood. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of the European Union, European politics, and international relations. This is a special issue of the leading" Journal of European Public Policy."

Table of Contents

Preface	viii
Christoph Knill
1 Introduction: Cross-national policy convergence: concepts, approaches and explanatory factors	1	(11)
Christoph Knill
2 Causes and conditions of cross-national policy convergence	12	(22)
Katharina Holzinger and Christoph Knill
3 When the birds sing. A framework for analysing domestic factors behind policy convergence	34	(20)
Andrea Lenschow, Duncan Liefferink and Sietske Veenman
4 Is there convergence in convergence research? An overview of empirical studies on policy convergence	54	(24)
Stephan Heichel, Jessica Pape and Thomas Sommerer
5 Globalization, harmonization, and competition: the different pathways to policy convergence	78	(19)
Daniel W. Drezner
6 The international sources of policy convergence: explaining the spread of environmental policy innovations	97	(25)
Per-Olof Busch and Helge Jörgens
7 Climate policy convergence in Europe: an assessment based on National Communications to the UNFCCC	122	(18)
Johan Albrecht and Bas Arts
8 Central banks on the move	140	(21)
Martin Marcussen
9 Diffusion without convergence: how political context shapes the adoption of regulatory impact assessment	161
Claudio Radaelli
Commentary
10 Policy convergence: a passing fad or a new integrating focus in European Union studies?	181	(10)
Andrew Jordan
Notes on contributors	191	(2)
Index	193