Theories of Policy Diffusion and Learning
By: Mina
Theories of policy diffusion and learning attempt to explain trends in the adoption of public policies across geographic regions and over time. In “Theories of Policy Diffusion,” Weyland proposes four theoretical frameworks to explain the spread of policy innovations: external pressure, normative imitation, rational learning and cognitive heuristics. (Weyland, p. 268) Weyland studies patterns of policy diffusion to examine the extent to which each framework can explain the spread of a pension privatization scheme as adopted in Chile. Weyland argues that external pressure, such as coercion from international financing organizations, can explain the rapid pace of policy diffusion among states and the range of countries with varying socioeconomic conditions. But coercion does not explain geographic clustering since a country’s socioeconomic conditions may be more closely aligned with a country in another region than to neighboring countries. Weyland finds normative imitation frameworks, which emphasize a country’s desire to appear legitimate in the eyes of other countries or non-state actors, insufficient. The normative framework is fitting if the quest for legitimacy is the predominant motivation, however multiple factors are often play. Rational choice is proposed as an alternative to coercive and normative explanations by explaining policy change as goal-oriented and motivated by interests. (Weyland, p. 279) Grounded in rational choice theory, this model assumes that policy decisions result from an analysis of options to determine which maximizes utility, but it does not explain why countries with different characteristics would adopt the same policy. According to Weyland, pension systems in countries that adopted Chilean-style privatization experienced varying levels of financial distress and their demographics also differed. Given heterogeneity across countries, the rational choice framework would predict the adoption of different approaches. Finally, Weyland discusses the cognitive heuristic framework which builds on rational choice by incorporating the idea of bounded rationality. (Weyland, p. 282). According to this framework, humans use assumptions to cope with limited ability to retain and process information. For example, policymakers may base conclusions on a limited set of data, assuming that findings are representative of the larger population. Since policymakers tend to rely on the same heuristics or assumptions, they arrive at similar conclusions about the best policy option.
Grossback et. al. introduce the role of ideology in policy learning and diffusion and argue that the content of the information used to inform or justify a policy decision matters. (Grossback et. al., p. 522) Similar to Weyland’s cognitive heuristic framework, Grossback et. al. acknowledge the role of uncertainty and the use of shortcuts to make decisions. In this framework, a policymaker’s cost benefit analysis includes consideration of potential political benefits compared with political risk. Without knowing how well a policy will be received within their own jurisdiction, policymakers rely on ideological similarities with other jurisdictions as a signal. Grossback et. al. find that policymakers are more likely to adopt a policy change if jurisdictions that are ideologically similar have already done so. (Grossback et. al., p. 540)
Shipan and Volden explore the interaction between four different mechanisms of policy diffusion across cities: learning from earlier adopters, economic competition among jurisdictions in close proximity, imitation of larger cities and coercion by state governments. (Shipan and Volden, p. 840) Shipan and Volden introduce the idea of interactions between various factors and temporal effects of each framework. Considering each framework by itself predicts a different pattern of diffusion than when other factors are considered. Using population as an example of a compounding factor, the economic competition hypothesis predicts that the chances of one city adopting a policy that its neighbor lacks decreases if there is the potential for negative spillover effects. (Shipan and Volden, p. 842) For example, jurisdictions fear becoming a “welfare magnet” by enacting more generous social protection policies than their neighbors. But Shipan and Volden’s analysis shows different effects for larger and smaller cities; cities with smaller population are more sensitive to economic competition than larger ones.
For brevity, this essay will not review each proposed framework in detail, it will examine arguments concerning coercion advanced in this week’s readings. Weyland downplays the influence of top-down coercion by IFIs using examples of countries that rejected coercive policy changes. I found his argument unconvincing as it was supported by limited evidence. In contrast, Shipan and Volden found coercion to be predictive of policy diffusion among both small and large cities. In fact, coercion was the only factor for which Shipan and Volden do not find interaction effects is between the size of a city and the influence of coercion. (Shipan and Volden, p. 853)
Carrot and stick approaches are commonly used to influence or discourage adoption of policy initiatives. My colleagues who are well versed in global policy can likely point to numerous examples of top-down coercive policies in the global sphere. The Medicaid expansion provision included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides a recent domestic example.
One of the primary goals of the ACA was to reduce the number of Americans who lack health insurance and access to health care. (Musumeci, 2012) The law built on existing health insurance structures by offering subsidies to help consumers purchase private insurance and by expanding Medicaid eligibility. Prior to enactment of the ACA, Medicaid did not cover single or non-disabled adults without children, unless the state obtained a waiver. The ACA included a provision to extend Medicaid eligibility to cover single, non-disabled adults and increased the income eligibility threshold from 133 percent of the federal poverty limit (FPL) to 138 percent of FPL.
Medicaid is financed through a combination of state and federal funding. As enacted, the ACA’s Medicaid expansion provision gave states the option of expanding Medicaid in exchange for additional federal funding. The enhanced federal funding would decrease over time, but would still result in an overall increase in Medicaid funding for a state. States that declined to expand Medicaid would face the loss of all federal Medicaid funding, including funds for which they were eligible before the ACA was enacted.
Twenty five states filed a lawsuit challenging the Medicaid expansion (and other provisions) of the law, saying the potential loss of Medicaid funding was overly coercive as it didn’t give states that wished to opt out of Medicaid expansion sufficient notice to develop alternative plans. Evidence was presented showing that Medicaid funding is a substantial share of resources, accounting for more than 10 percent of several states’ annual budgets. In a complicated decision, the Supreme Court sided with the states. The ACA was subsequently amended so that states which opt out of Medicaid expansion do not lose all federal Medicaid funds. They retain federal Medicaid funds to which they were eligible before the ACA was enacted, but are not eligible for enhanced matching funds.
Discussion Questions
The action by 25 states to participate in the Medicaid lawsuit suggests that all 25 would reject Medicaid expansion once the coercive elements (threat of losing federal funding for existing Medicaid programs) were eliminated. But after the Supreme Court case was settled, just 20 states chose not to expand Medicaid, fewer than the number that participated in the lawsuit.
While this week’s readings focus on mechanisms through which governments learn from each other and adapt policy solutions, limited attention is paid to the origin of the initial innovation. (Grossback et. al., 2004).
Works Cited
Weyland, Kurt, “Theories of Policy Diffusion: Lessons for Latin American Pension Reform,” World Politics, 57(2), 2005.
Drezner, Daniel, “Globalization and Policy Convergence,” International Studies Review, 3(1), 2001.
Shipan, Charles R. and Volden, Craig, “The Mechanisms of Policy Diffusion,” American Journal of Political Science, 52(4), 2008.
Grossback, Lawrence J; Nicholson-Crotty, Sean and Peterson, David A. M.; “Ideology and Learning in Policy Diffusion,” American Politics Research, 32 (5), 2004.
Zeng, Douglas Zhihua, “Global Experiences With Special Economic Zones – With a Focus on China and Africa,” The World Bank, 2015.
Additional Work Cited
Musumeci, MaryBeth, “A Guide to the Supreme Court’s Decision on the ACA’s Medicaid Expansion,” Kaiser Family Foundation Issue Brief, 2012.
By: Mina
Theories of policy diffusion and learning attempt to explain trends in the adoption of public policies across geographic regions and over time. In “Theories of Policy Diffusion,” Weyland proposes four theoretical frameworks to explain the spread of policy innovations: external pressure, normative imitation, rational learning and cognitive heuristics. (Weyland, p. 268) Weyland studies patterns of policy diffusion to examine the extent to which each framework can explain the spread of a pension privatization scheme as adopted in Chile. Weyland argues that external pressure, such as coercion from international financing organizations, can explain the rapid pace of policy diffusion among states and the range of countries with varying socioeconomic conditions. But coercion does not explain geographic clustering since a country’s socioeconomic conditions may be more closely aligned with a country in another region than to neighboring countries. Weyland finds normative imitation frameworks, which emphasize a country’s desire to appear legitimate in the eyes of other countries or non-state actors, insufficient. The normative framework is fitting if the quest for legitimacy is the predominant motivation, however multiple factors are often play. Rational choice is proposed as an alternative to coercive and normative explanations by explaining policy change as goal-oriented and motivated by interests. (Weyland, p. 279) Grounded in rational choice theory, this model assumes that policy decisions result from an analysis of options to determine which maximizes utility, but it does not explain why countries with different characteristics would adopt the same policy. According to Weyland, pension systems in countries that adopted Chilean-style privatization experienced varying levels of financial distress and their demographics also differed. Given heterogeneity across countries, the rational choice framework would predict the adoption of different approaches. Finally, Weyland discusses the cognitive heuristic framework which builds on rational choice by incorporating the idea of bounded rationality. (Weyland, p. 282). According to this framework, humans use assumptions to cope with limited ability to retain and process information. For example, policymakers may base conclusions on a limited set of data, assuming that findings are representative of the larger population. Since policymakers tend to rely on the same heuristics or assumptions, they arrive at similar conclusions about the best policy option.
Grossback et. al. introduce the role of ideology in policy learning and diffusion and argue that the content of the information used to inform or justify a policy decision matters. (Grossback et. al., p. 522) Similar to Weyland’s cognitive heuristic framework, Grossback et. al. acknowledge the role of uncertainty and the use of shortcuts to make decisions. In this framework, a policymaker’s cost benefit analysis includes consideration of potential political benefits compared with political risk. Without knowing how well a policy will be received within their own jurisdiction, policymakers rely on ideological similarities with other jurisdictions as a signal. Grossback et. al. find that policymakers are more likely to adopt a policy change if jurisdictions that are ideologically similar have already done so. (Grossback et. al., p. 540)
Shipan and Volden explore the interaction between four different mechanisms of policy diffusion across cities: learning from earlier adopters, economic competition among jurisdictions in close proximity, imitation of larger cities and coercion by state governments. (Shipan and Volden, p. 840) Shipan and Volden introduce the idea of interactions between various factors and temporal effects of each framework. Considering each framework by itself predicts a different pattern of diffusion than when other factors are considered. Using population as an example of a compounding factor, the economic competition hypothesis predicts that the chances of one city adopting a policy that its neighbor lacks decreases if there is the potential for negative spillover effects. (Shipan and Volden, p. 842) For example, jurisdictions fear becoming a “welfare magnet” by enacting more generous social protection policies than their neighbors. But Shipan and Volden’s analysis shows different effects for larger and smaller cities; cities with smaller population are more sensitive to economic competition than larger ones.
For brevity, this essay will not review each proposed framework in detail, it will examine arguments concerning coercion advanced in this week’s readings. Weyland downplays the influence of top-down coercion by IFIs using examples of countries that rejected coercive policy changes. I found his argument unconvincing as it was supported by limited evidence. In contrast, Shipan and Volden found coercion to be predictive of policy diffusion among both small and large cities. In fact, coercion was the only factor for which Shipan and Volden do not find interaction effects is between the size of a city and the influence of coercion. (Shipan and Volden, p. 853)
Carrot and stick approaches are commonly used to influence or discourage adoption of policy initiatives. My colleagues who are well versed in global policy can likely point to numerous examples of top-down coercive policies in the global sphere. The Medicaid expansion provision included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides a recent domestic example.
One of the primary goals of the ACA was to reduce the number of Americans who lack health insurance and access to health care. (Musumeci, 2012) The law built on existing health insurance structures by offering subsidies to help consumers purchase private insurance and by expanding Medicaid eligibility. Prior to enactment of the ACA, Medicaid did not cover single or non-disabled adults without children, unless the state obtained a waiver. The ACA included a provision to extend Medicaid eligibility to cover single, non-disabled adults and increased the income eligibility threshold from 133 percent of the federal poverty limit (FPL) to 138 percent of FPL.
Medicaid is financed through a combination of state and federal funding. As enacted, the ACA’s Medicaid expansion provision gave states the option of expanding Medicaid in exchange for additional federal funding. The enhanced federal funding would decrease over time, but would still result in an overall increase in Medicaid funding for a state. States that declined to expand Medicaid would face the loss of all federal Medicaid funding, including funds for which they were eligible before the ACA was enacted.
Twenty five states filed a lawsuit challenging the Medicaid expansion (and other provisions) of the law, saying the potential loss of Medicaid funding was overly coercive as it didn’t give states that wished to opt out of Medicaid expansion sufficient notice to develop alternative plans. Evidence was presented showing that Medicaid funding is a substantial share of resources, accounting for more than 10 percent of several states’ annual budgets. In a complicated decision, the Supreme Court sided with the states. The ACA was subsequently amended so that states which opt out of Medicaid expansion do not lose all federal Medicaid funds. They retain federal Medicaid funds to which they were eligible before the ACA was enacted, but are not eligible for enhanced matching funds.
Discussion Questions
The action by 25 states to participate in the Medicaid lawsuit suggests that all 25 would reject Medicaid expansion once the coercive elements (threat of losing federal funding for existing Medicaid programs) were eliminated. But after the Supreme Court case was settled, just 20 states chose not to expand Medicaid, fewer than the number that participated in the lawsuit.
- Which frameworks, other than coercion, could explain a state’s decision to expand Medicaid and accept additional federal funding in the absence of coercion?
While this week’s readings focus on mechanisms through which governments learn from each other and adapt policy solutions, limited attention is paid to the origin of the initial innovation. (Grossback et. al., 2004).
- How might policymakers develop solutions for policy problems for which there is no precedent?
Works Cited
Weyland, Kurt, “Theories of Policy Diffusion: Lessons for Latin American Pension Reform,” World Politics, 57(2), 2005.
Drezner, Daniel, “Globalization and Policy Convergence,” International Studies Review, 3(1), 2001.
Shipan, Charles R. and Volden, Craig, “The Mechanisms of Policy Diffusion,” American Journal of Political Science, 52(4), 2008.
Grossback, Lawrence J; Nicholson-Crotty, Sean and Peterson, David A. M.; “Ideology and Learning in Policy Diffusion,” American Politics Research, 32 (5), 2004.
Zeng, Douglas Zhihua, “Global Experiences With Special Economic Zones – With a Focus on China and Africa,” The World Bank, 2015.
Additional Work Cited
Musumeci, MaryBeth, “A Guide to the Supreme Court’s Decision on the ACA’s Medicaid Expansion,” Kaiser Family Foundation Issue Brief, 2012.