Diffusion of Good Government: Social Sector Reforms in Brazil

2. Theoretical Debates on Policy Diffusion: A Motivations Approach

C H A P T E R 2 Theoretical Debates on Policy Diffusion A Motivations Approach A fundamental question that has recently engaged social scientists’ attention involves diffusion events. Simply put, how do ideas and practices spread, and why do actors embrace them? The geographic spread of social phenomena includes all types of innovations. Various social science fields have drawn on diffusion as a lens for analyzing the spread of capitalism, welfare regimes, agricultural methods, and adoption of new technologies, for example. As observers of social interactions, we can imagine countless examples of replication across place and time.This chapter addresses diffusion processes that reside at the core of political science debates, including why ideas and policies spread across political territories and the mysteries behind actors’ motivations for emulation. Before proceeding further, let us first clarify a few concepts and terms. What Is Diffusion? Diffusion phenomena, which evoke images from the natural sciences, such as the spread of a virus across space, are all around us and have cap24 tured the attention of a wide range of scholars. Social science disciplines as diverse as sociology, economics, political science, agriculture, and business have also sought to explain socially created events that occur in their respective domains of inquiry. Some occurrences seem to “make sense” as people learn about innovations and quickly adopt them. One classic example in this vein is the spread of hybrid corn among farmers in Iowa, who rapidly embraced the usage of hybrid seeds in the 1940s.1 In business administration, research has sought to explain the adoption of ideas that do not necessarily result in an improvement. For instance, the QWERTY keyboard for typewriters and computers has been widely recognized as an inefficient layout for typists but remains an entrenched standard worldwide even though manufacturers could produce a more efficient alternative.2 In the realm of political science research, diffusion phenomena have similarly captured scholars’ attention. After all there are countless examples of diffusion, including the spread of smoking regulations in the United States, pension systems across Europe, freemarket reforms, women’s ministries around the world, electoral quotas for women, and global democracy, among others (for some recent examples see Brinks and Coppedge 2006; Karch 2007; Krook 2006; Orenstein 2003; Shipan and Volden 2006; Simmons and Elkins 2004; True and Mintrom 2001). While diffusion research has enjoyed great interest in the social sciences, we need to ask, what is diffusion precisely? Scholars use such diverse metaphors as “contagion,” “waves,” and “transfer” to describe diffusion events (see, for instance, Burt 1987; Stone 1999; Walt 2000). But are they the same? This definitional question underscores the need to clarify the relationship between actors and emulation decisions. For instance, “contagion” suggests a rapid replication process, perhaps due to the infectious nature of the policy. In other words, it is the character of the idea or policy that matters most. Alternatively, the idea of policy “waves” invokes a natural and even inevitable process of adoption. Lastly, “policy transfer” intimates that emulation is caused by some type of learning among actors. Inherent in each of the terms is an underlying assumption about how diffusion takes place and the role that actors play in adoption decisions. Distinguishing among these concepts is more than an exercise in etymology; it gets at the heart of the Theoretical Debates on Policy Diffusion 25 interaction between actors and policy making. As the purpose of the analysis is to uncover actors’ motivations, the definition of diffusion to be used here does not assume policy makers’ underlying rationales for decision making. Diffusion implies autonomous decision making across time and place, while also accounting for potential interdependence between actors. Political actors may learn about an innovation from a neighboring government or international meeting, and choose to copy that innovation in their own countries. Sometimes the impetus to emulate can come from peer influence (horizontal), or reflect internal demands (bottom-up) or external pressures (vertical). These inducements need not reflect benign forces but can include coercion or other stimuli for cooperation. For a visual illustration of the potential influences driving diffusion effects, see figure 2.1. This study broadly defines diffusion to include processes that affect the likelihood that a reasonably autonomous jurisdiction will adopt an innovative policy developed by another such unit, at some point in time. Various members of...