Diffusion of Innovations - Policy Diffusion

Policy Diffusion

The theories of diffusion have spread beyond the original applied fields. In the case of political science and administration, policy diffusion focuses on how institutional innovations are adopted by other institutions, at the local, state or country level. An alternative term is 'policy transfer' where the focus is more on the agents of diffusion such as in the work of Diane Stone.

The first interests with regards to policy diffusion were focused in the variation over time (Berry & Berry 1990 or, state lottery adoption) but more recently the interest has shifted towards mechanisms (emulation, learning, coercion, as in Simmons & Elkins (2004) or Gilardi (2010) or in channels of diffusion (as in Jordana, Levi-Faur and Fernández-i-Marín (2011)), where the authors find that the creation of regulatory agencies is transmitted by country and sector channels).