Policy Diffusion: A Regime‐sensitive Conceptual Framework
| Published date | 01 November 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12363 |
| Date | 01 November 2016 |
| Author | Jale Tosun,Aurel Croissant |
Policy Diffusion: A Regime-sensitive Conceptual
Framework
Jale Tosun and Aurel Croissant
Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University
Abstract
The analysis of diffusion processes is an expanding field of research in the social and economic sciences. However, prolific
scholarship has highlighted the transnational diffusion of policy innovations, but the insights provided –at least for policies –
are limited by a ‘democracy bias’, that is, the focus of most studies is on democracies. This limitation concerns both the empir-
ical scope of most diffusion studies and their theoretical underpinning. Furthermore, the emphasis placed on the diffusion
mechanisms has hindered the development of conceptual frameworks that systematically account for political regime charac-
teristics and their role for policy diffusion. To take a first step towards reducing this gap, we propose an alternative conceptual
framework. It builds on the existing literature on policy diffusion, but shifts the perspective from the international to the
national context. In the subsequent discussion we put forward a theoretical framework that explicitly accounts for the role of
political regime types in policy diffusion and shifts the analytical focus from mechanisms to ‘routes’of diffusion.
Introduction
Two well studied empirical phenomena –the diffusion of
democracy and the diffusion of policy innovations –form
the starting points of this study. Our analytical perspective,
however, is a less common approach to these phenomena.
For one, we acknowledge that in contrast to the democratic
euphoria of the 1990s, the explosive spread of democracy
around the world since the mid-1970s has not been accom-
panied by the erosion of authoritarianism. Even if one
employs a minimalist yardstick of democracy, such as the
Freedom House concept of ‘electoral democracy’, around 40
per cent of countries worldwide can be considered as auto-
cratic (Figure 1).
Moreover, since the turn of the millennium, the once power-
ful ‘third-wave of democratization’has been unable to further
expand, whereas a number of nascent democracies have
reverted back to authoritarianism, and the remaining autocra-
cies have also proven resilient against the challenges of demo-
cratic transformation. Indeed, a new pessimism has started to
gain momentum in politics and political science. Metaphors
such as ‘rollback of democracy’(Anheier, 2015) and ‘Authoritari-
anism Goes Global’(Diamond, et al., 2016) have become cen-
tral concerns of policymakers and social scientists alike.
Second, prolific scholarship has highlighted the transna-
tional diffusion of policy innovations, but the insights pro-
vided –at least for policies –are limited by a predominant
focus on democracies. This limitation concerns both the
empirical scope of most diffusion studies and their theoreti-
cal underpinnings. Furthermore, the emphasis placed on the
‘mechanisms’has hindered the development of conceptual
frameworks that systematically account for political regime
characteristics and their roles in policy diffusion processes.
In recognition of both the persistence of autocracies
alongside democracies and the empirical manifestation of
cross-national policy diffusion, we argue that there is a need
for a regime-sensitive framework for the study of policy dif-
fusion. In taking a first step towards reducing this gap, we
propose an alternative conceptual framework that aims to
contribute to the study of diffusion.
Democracy and autocracy
The age-old political science debate on democracy versus
autocracy fills more than one library. Luckily, we do not
have to recap it here. Although the meaning of democracy
is multifaceted and contested, most empirical works in the
fields of policy studies, democratization, authoritarianism
and contentious politics rely on a procedural rather than a
substantive conception of democracy. Democracies are
therefore typically defined as ‘polyarchies’(Dahl, 1989):
Starting from such a procedural definition of democracy,
the term autocracy would then simply denote all forms of
‘non-democracy’, no matter if traditional or modern, authori-
tarian or totalitarian, personalist dictatorship or led by the
military, a royal dynasty or a single political party (Brooker,
2014).
Yet, such a binary distinction between democracy and
autocracy does not suffice for the study of the regime-diffu-
sion nexus. First, the global spread of democracy in the last
quarter of the twentieth century has not been marked by a
triumph of democratic liberalism, but quite often by illiberal
‘electoralism’. Many ‘transitions from authoritarian rule’got
stuck in the grey zone between (minimal) democracy and
(open) autocracy (Merkel and Croissant, 2004). In compara-
tive politics and empirical democracy research, such forms
of political regimes are at times conceptualized as dimin-
ished forms of democracy (‘democracy with adjectives’)or
©2016 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2016) 7:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12363
Global Policy Volume 7 . Issue 4 . November 2016
534
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