10. Conceptualising Ideational Convergence of China and OECD Donors: Coalition Magnets in Development Cooperation

China’s continued economic growth and increasing level of engagement on the international stage have spurred an intense debate over China’s role as a rising power in development cooperation. Academic literature has painted a nuanced picture of Chinese foreign aid, such as defining (Bräutigam 2011; Grimm et al. 2011; Li 2012), tracking (Kitano and Harada 2016), and assessing the allocation and effects of Chinese foreign aid (Strange et al. 2017). One dominating theme across this literature is a focus on the differences between Chinese and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) development cooperation and the development cooperation of members of the OECD.¹ For instance, China does not define and assess its aid according to the OECD-Development Assistance Committee’s (DAC) definition of official development assistance (ODA) but reports aid based on own standards (Bräutigam 2011).

China is usually portrayed as a challenger to the DAC donors and an alternative model (Hackenesch 2013; Kragelund 2015; Woods 2008; Zhang et al. 2015). Debates on Chinese development cooperation also tend to be embedded in comparisons between DAC donors and “emerging donors” such as Brazil, India, South Africa, and China (Chin and Quadir 2012; Li and Carey 2014; Rowlands 2012). This literature assesses whether OECD-DAC and non-DAC donors such as China converge or diverge in terms of rhetoric, motives, norms (Reilly 2012), conditionality, thematic focus, institutional structures (Sidiropoulos et al. 2015), and modalities (Vazquez et al. 2016). Typically, these studies focus on explaining the differences between Chinese and OECD-DAC aid and often conclude that they are largely irreconcilable.

Despite long-standing differences between China and OECD donors, however, there has been a growing overlap between the aid activities of China and DAC donors across several areas of cooperation in recent years. On the one hand, OECD donors have increasingly pursued their national interests in development cooperation (Gulrajani 2017; Mawdsley 2017b). On the other hand, China has initiated a big push on global development. Most notably, China has launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also known as “the Silk Road of the 21st Century”, massively increasing investments and its profile across Asia and Africa (Chun 2017). In addition, China has stepped up its engagement in multilateralism. During its G20 presidency in 2018, China championed the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, linking G20 and United Nations (UN) activities. Two new multilateral institutions—the New Development Bank (“BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] bank”) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank—are backed by China. Based on these observations of China’s increased level of international engagement and the related literature on Chinese foreign aid, this chapter analyses potential areas of convergence between China and other international actors.

As a deliberate choice and in contrast to other academic literature, this analysis does not emphasise the differences between China and OECD-DAC donors but focuses on the concept of “ideational convergence” (Bickerton et al. 2015; Radaelli 2006). Ideational convergence is defined as the extent to which ideas held by different development actors become more similar over time. There are three main reasons for this approach. First, there is a gap in unpacking convergence in the literature, as most research focuses on the differences between China and other actors. In particular, there is an increasing level of convergence of ideas between China and OECD-DAC donors regarding international development that current political theories do not fully explain. Second, even within broad areas of convergence, there are nuanced differences that this analysis reveals. Third, for normative reasons, we believe that an increased understanding of convergence is needed to foster cooperation among different global development actors.

In addition, the analysis focuses on the international development discourse² and the importance of ideas for determining political outcomes, following a constructivist approach to international relations. This chapter emphasises the role of discourse, capturing both ideas and the interactive process by which ideas are conveyed, because discourse can help to explain how specific policies and initiatives are adopted and why political change occurs (Schmidt 2008). When viewing international development as a policy field, ideas are crucial for coordinated action by helping to organise coalitions around the shared goals and identities of different actors (Fligstein and McAdam 2012; Yanguas 2017). Although the “turn to ideas” (Jessop 2001; Schmidt 2008) has been ongoing in the political science literature, few of these ideational theories have been applied to study Chinese foreign engagement (Feng 2016; Wang and Blyth 2013).

For China as a development actor, a focus on ideas fits well because ideas formulated by the country’s leadership are the cornerstone of its policy-making, including Chinese foreign aid. At the same time, policy-making in China is often characterised as a gradual, experimental, and adaptive process (Ang 2016; Qian 2017). Therefore, it is investigated whether the meaning of ideas and their interpretations change over time, especially in the Chinese policy discourse on foreign aid (Varrall 2013; Zhang et al. 2015). The key research question for this chapter is: How can the convergence of ideas in international development cooperation be conceptualised, and which specific ideas indicate a convergence on development thinking between China and OECD donors?

This analysis is structured in four parts. First, the theoretical background on ideas and institutions for explaining Chinese foreign aid is introduced. Next, the concept of “coalition magnets” is defined and the analytical framework is laid out. Third, three coalition magnets are identified: mutual benefit, development results, and the 2030 Agenda. For each of these coalition magnets, the potential of fostering joint OECD-DAC and Chinese engagement in development cooperation is explored. The final part contextualises the findings in the current development discourse and presents conclusions.

The chapter relies mainly on desk research with a focus on the academic and policy literature from OECD countries and China as well as interviews conducted in China with foreign aid experts from September to October 2017. Moreover, a wide range of official and unofficial sources was consulted to understand how development cooperation discourse is expressed, particularly in contemporary Chinese elite discourse. Official documents and grey literature allow for examining how Chinese elites interpret and elaborate on official Chinese government narratives, and how they seek to portray such narratives to domestic and foreign audiences.

Chinese foreign policy has changed radically in recent years. In the 1990s, President Deng Xiaoping had characterised China’s foreign policy strategy as “taoguang yanghui, yousuo zuowei” (keeping a low profile while trying to accomplish something) because of the radical shifts in the international order after the collapse of the Soviet Union (Lee 2016; Wang 2014). The United States had become the global superpower, and China did not want to challenge them, and neither took on a leadership role in the “Global South”. In the past two decades, Presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao followed this policy of maintaining a low profile in international relations and mainly concentrated on China’s economic growth (Lee 2016). With President Xi Jinping, however, the world has witnessed a massive expansion of Chinese engagement abroad. Contrary to his predecessors, President Xi uses terms such as “China Path” or “China Dream” (Sørensen 2015) to suggest “a strong nation capable of global leadership and of representing an alternative model of governance that sets China apart from market-led capitalism or liberal democracy” (Shi-Kupfer et al. 2017, p. 9).

International relations theories analysing the increase in China’s international efforts, including foreign aid, usually focus on national interest as the main driver. Typically, pursuing national interest within an anarchic system of sovereign nation states means increasing state power relative to other states, either through hard or “soft power” (Ding 2010; Nye 2004). Cooperation between China and other actors in this context is viewed as being driven purely by the pursuit of material self-interest and eventually leading to conflict (Allison 2017; Gilpin 1983; Mearsheimer 2010). However, these theories are insufficient to fully explain the rapid expansion of—and the changes in—Chinese development cooperation. For instance, soft power has limitations, both as a deliberate Chinese political strategy and as an analytical lens. Soft power is often used as an empty catch-all term with little analytical precision, neglecting the nuances of international engagement (Rawnsley 2016). Besides, soft power requires a specific context—typically a common rule-governed institutional setting and the presence of underlying mutual interest—in order to be utilised effectively as an explanatory factor (Kearn 2008). China’s communication of its foreign policy, however, still targets a domestic audience and does not resonate abroad, leading to limited success of its soft power strategies (Gill and Huang 2006; Lee 2016; Shambaugh 2015).

Furthermore, Chinese efforts to protect global public goods such as the Paris Agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, or the global free trade regime cannot be solely explained as a strategy to expand power at the expense of other countries. Ideas of enlightened self-interest or global cooperation could provide a complementary explanation that has yet to be studied in greater detail (Anand 2004; Kaul et al. 1999; Kenny et al. 2018). Thus, applying an ideational framework to assess the power of ideas to form coalitions of political actors may help to explain the increased level of Chinese engagement in foreign aid. Another important argument for an ideational approach to studying China’s foreign engagement is the role of ideas in its policy-making. As an authoritarian one-party state, ideas and discourses in China are key factors in determining political outcomes. Those presenting ideas in the Chinese academic literature often react to changes in the official policies of the Chinese Communist Party, which determines what “correct ideas” are (Chin et al. 2013).

Scholars have thus far not applied discursive frameworks widely in studying the Chinese domestic discourse. Rationalist international relations frameworks tend to view China as a monolithic actor, without unpacking domestic policy discourse. Our analysis builds on “discursive institutionalism” (Schmidt 2008, 2010), which is complementary to the new institutionalist approaches of historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism, and sociological institutionalism. A major criticism against these three institutionalisms is that institutions have become overly deterministic, and agents have mostly set preferences or are fixated by norms. Hay argues that

actors as driven either by utility maximization in an institutionalized game scenario (rational choice institutionalism) or by institutionalized norms and cultural conventions (normative/sociological institutionalism) or, indeed, both (historical institutionalism), are unlikely to offer much analytical purchase on questions of complex post-formative institutional change. (Hay 2006a, p. 6)

Discursive institutionalism moves away from this static perspective of viewing institutions as largely constraining rules that are external to the actors. Instead, discursive institutionalism defines institutions as being simultaneously given (the context within which agents think, speak, and act) as well as contingent (as the results of agents’ thoughts, words, and actions) (Schmidt 2008, p. 314). Hence, institutions are internal to the actors and serve both as structures that constrain behaviour and as constructs created and changed by those actors (Schmidt 2008, p. 314). Actors then engage through ideas and discourse with these institutions to maintain or change institutional outcomes or policies (Béland 2005). For the Chinese context, this discursive institutionalist approach offers a complementary perspective to the dominant rational choice heavy literature and explains how Chinese political behaviour and policy-making outcomes are driven by ideas rather than solely by self-interest (Campbell 2002).

Ideas themselves are increasingly crucial for understanding processes of political change. We define ideas as causal beliefs about economic, social, and political phenomena (Béland and Cox 2016). Ideas are cognitive products, meaning that they are interpretations of the material world in the mind, and ideas posit relationships (formal and informal) between things and events, and they are guides (causes) for actions (Béland and Cox 2010, pp. 3–4). Institutions are understood as “carriers of ideas” or “collective memories”, following Schmidt (2011). Power³ is understood as the ability to shape outcomes and reach particular goals (Béland and Cox 2016; Morriss 2006), which includes the dimension of ideational power (Carstensen and Schmidt 2016). Power is a key factor in this process of discourse when actors promote certain ideas at the expense of other ideas. Ideas and power can interact in various ways, for example through discourse.

For the analysis, the focus is placed on ideas that can serve as vehicles for collective action and coalition-building, and the role of policy entrepreneurs to use framing processes to influence discourse. Policy entrepreneurs are broadly defined as “people who are willing to invest resources of various kinds in hopes of a future return in the form of policies they favour” (Kingdon 1984, p. 143). These policy entrepreneurs could be political leaders, elected officials, party members, policy-makers, the media, interest groups, public intellectuals, opinion-makers, social movements, or ordinary people. Policy entrepreneurs use strategic framing, a process by which actors use their ideas and their power to influence discourse (Béland and Cox 2016, p. 432).

We adopt an ideational framework developed by Béland and Cox (2016), who argue that ideas can shape political power relations through their role as “coalition magnets”, defined as the capacity of an idea to appeal to a diverse set of individuals and groups, and to be used strategically by policy entrepreneurs.

Béland and Cox (2016) highlight two critical characteristics of an idea that makes it attractive for policy entrepreneurs to employ as a coalition magnet. First, ambiguous and polysemic ideas that appeal to a range of heterogeneous actors for different reasons have a strong potential for becoming coalition magnets. The broader the idea, the easier it is for policy entrepreneurs to bring different constituencies together and transcend political divisions. Clearly defined and narrow ideas are typically less suited. Second, ideas need to be valent, meaning that they evoke emotional reactions that can be positive or negative and have low or high intensity. Particularly, ideas with a positive and high-intensity valence are likely to have strong coalition-building potential.

Once policy entrepreneurs determine to use a specific idea as a coalition magnet, they typically seek to create a new language that is unfamiliar to actors in a given policy debate, or they use existing language in a new and unfamiliar way. Next, key actors in the policy debate with decision-making authority need to embrace the idea and grant legitimacy to the given policy preference. Finally, different actors whose perceived interests had previously placed them at odds need to engage jointly with the particular issue in new ways, or actors that had previously not been engaged in a given issue need to do so. When these circumstances are in place, Béland and Cox (2016) argue that an idea can become a coalition magnet that policy entrepreneurs use to alter power relations and political outcomes. As an example of coalition magnet ideas, they analyse the ideas “sustainability”, “solidarity”, and “social inclusion”.

The main limitations of the coalition magnet framework are similar to limitations of discursive institutionalism or constructivist ideational theories. Primarily, there is a risk that ideational theories ascribe a vague or almost meaningless role to institutions (Bell 2011), or what Hay (2006b) calls “ideational voluntarism”. In particular, ideational theories need to address the structure-agency problem and determine the relationship between the ideational and the material. A series of methodological issues follow from this ontological challenge, as any ideational theory needs to clarify the relation between institutions, ideas, and policy outcomes. For the specific case of coalition magnet ideas, it is crucial to understand them as “ideas empowering actors” (Parsons 2016), whereby the challenge for the analysis is to track who champions the ideas, how their agendas relate to perceived problems, how these change over time, and to what extent actors have shared core understandings or different interpretations of a given idea.

The framework is applied to three ideas in international development cooperation—mutual benefit, development results, and the 2030 Agenda—to assess their potential as coalition magnets (Table 10.1). In the analysis, the ambiguity and valence of the idea are assessed first, and then the analysis shifts to which actors embrace the idea to grant it legitimacy, before turning to the question of whether policy entrepreneurs are already using the idea as a coalition magnet. The analysis does not, however, go beyond the analysing stage of agenda-setting in the policy process because the main focus lies on assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each policy idea with respect to fostering convergence between China and OECD-DAC development actors. However, coalitions may be fragile after the agenda-setting stage, especially regarding implementation or other post-agenda-setting stages of the policy cycle (Howlett et al. 2009). Ultimately, coalition magnets can also become “empty signifiers” (Laclau 1996), ideas that bring disparate people together in a common cause but otherwise have no attachment to precise content. Still, coalition magnet ideas are not assumed to “float freely” but are anchored in transnational policy networks and different domestic structures that differ in terms of state–society relations as well as values and norms embedded in political cultures (Risse-Kappen 1994). This analysis, therefore, contextualises its findings against the background of global development discussions and domestic challenges that policy entrepreneurs face by analysing different types of discourse that link ideas with collective action (Schmidt 2011).

Three ideas are purposefully selected to cover different domains of aid policy-making (motives, implementation, goal system) and different associations in terms of actors that are predominantly linked to the specific idea. The first idea, mutual benefit, is being discussed in the context of the underlying motives of development cooperation and has been a cornerstone of Chinese foreign aid and South-South cooperation. For this idea, we also analyse to what extent OECD-DAC countries have used it. The second idea represents the implementation and management side of foreign aid, namely what is often termed “development results”—the idea that aid interventions should lead to measurable improvements in people’s lives. This idea has been codified by OEDC-DAC donors in various policy documents, whereas China has only gradually moved into this direction. The third idea represents the goal system of international development, namely the 2030 Agenda, which was agreed in the UN in 2015 and theoretically applies to all development actors equally, including those from China and OECD-DAC countries.

Comparing the ideas, it can be observed that each idea has a strong potential to become a coalition magnet idea, as each idea is polysemic and valent, and has been legitimised through various policy documents from OECD countries as well as from China. Yet, none of the ideas has been strategically used by policy entrepreneurs to foster convergence and consensus between OECD countries and China. As a next step, we contextualise our findings in the current landscape of global development discussions and explore the challenges that prevent policy entrepreneurs from fostering convergence generally as well as individually for each of the three ideas. Based on this analysis, we explore tentative steps that policy entrepreneurs could take to foster convergence for each of the three coalition magnet ideas.

In terms of challenges that prevent convergence around coalition magnet ideas, one key global trend has been the rise of identity-based populist and nationalist political movements in OECD countries (Luce 2017; Schmidt 2017) as well as in China (Johnston 2017). Gills (2017, p. 157) states that populist political currents have been making “a ‘nationalist’ appeal to citizens, and rejecting alternative cosmopolitan responses to the tensions generated by an increasingly globalized world”. Cosmopolitan ideas on greater multilateral cooperation, such as mutual benefit, development results, and the 2030 Agenda, are therefore facing a generally unfavourable policy environment and are likely to encounter strong political opposition. Policy entrepreneurs, therefore, need to use their political power and rhetorical skills in politically smart ways (Béland and Cox 2016) to bridge the divide between nationalistic populism and cosmopolitan ideas of multilateralism.

Based on discursive institutionalism, this gap in multilateralism is closely linked to the divide between what Schmidt (2008) calls the coordinative and the communicative spheres of discourse. In the coordinative sphere, experts conduct policy discussions among themselves, whereas the communicative sphere involves the general public (Schmidt 2008).⁴ Each sphere requires distinctive discursive strategies (speaker, message, audience) to be successful in terms of achieving political change (Schmidt 2011). One key problem, however, has been that experts in the coordinative sphere have not sufficiently interacted with those in the communicative sphere, while the communicative sphere has been increasingly subject to the influence of technology and technological disruption (Schmidt 2017). As a result, public statements and practical policies keep diverging, as politicians make policy announcements that their administrations cannot deliver.

The main strategy for countering this trend is finding ways of coupling the coordinative and communicative spheres of discourse. Policy entrepreneurs need to disseminate their ideas across the coordinative policy sphere and the communicative politics sphere with tailored strategies to create new policy coalitions in national and international settings that may cut across political cleavages. We explore the concept of coupling the coordinative and communicative spheres of discourse by applying it to OECD countries and China for each of the three potential coalition magnet ideas. Therefore, we first reflect on the specific challenges to greater convergence for each idea and then sketch potential ways of bridging these challenges by coupling coordinative and communicative spheres of discourse.

For the potential coalition magnet idea of mutual benefit, two main obstacles prevent greater convergence. First, the strong emphasis on the commercial interests of OECD-DAC donors and China risks co-opting a developmental agenda for private gains. Already authors are warning that the main beneficiaries of mutual benefit-oriented aid in OECD-DAC countries are business elites and consultants (Mawdsley et al. 2016). Second, power relations in development cooperation are still largely skewed towards the aid provider, and the agency and voice of recipients are under threat. Previous efforts of OECD-DAC donors to self-discipline, for example through the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, have failed and lost their political support. An attempt by OECD-DAC donors to extend the ODA definition towards total official support for sustainable development in a non-inclusive and non-transparent process was perceived as an attempt to shirk existing donor commitments (Besharati 2017).

Going forward, policy entrepreneurs face the challenge of fostering more nuanced and transparent dialogue on the balance of mutual benefit, where the main problem is not the existence of national interests but their concealment. Keijzer and Lundsgaarde (2017) propose extending the monitoring and evaluation toolbox of ODA to better track benefits outside of the recipient country. Such a step would improve transparency and allow for a more honest dialogue on foreign aid. Chinese foreign aid already systematically monitors mutual benefit in select projects, although these evaluations have not yet been published (Zhou 2016). Hence, China could move towards a more transparent discussion of how benefits are distributed in its cooperation, for instance by making internal tendering processes more transparent and open for competition. Although the transparent evaluation of mutual benefit is a long-term objective for policy entrepreneurs, a more immediate step could be a discussion on global public goods and enlightened self-interest. Using the coalition magnet idea of mutual benefit in this way could foster greater convergence between OECD-DAC donors and China and help to couple the coordinative and communicative spheres of discourse between the international and national levels.

For the potential coalition magnet idea of development results, the main challenge is that OECD-DAC donors and China are falling behind on established metrics of aid effectiveness. For example, the share of country programmable aid⁵ in bilateral ODA and the amount of ODA to LDCs⁶ have declined in recent years (OECD 2017). A 2016 survey of 81 developing countries showed that only about half of all aid was spent through country systems (OECD and United Nations Development Programme 2016). These trends come at the expense of recipient countries. In the same way, developing countries that partner with China and its partners continue to have little insight and influence on the details of Chinese aid allocation and results reporting. Although China remains actively engaged with other providers of South-South cooperation to jointly develop own reporting standards for development results, this process has been moving slowly.

Going forward, the SDGs provide sufficient room for policy entrepreneurs to foster the convergence of DAC donors and China in terms of reporting development results and harmonising monitoring and evaluation approaches. DAC donors have to achieve greater coherence and transparency in differentiating tiers of results (development results, development cooperation results, and performance) as well as purposes of results reporting (accountability, communication, direction, and learning) while upholding established aid effectiveness standards. China could increase its engagement for further defining South-South cooperation principles and standards while continuing its move towards more transparent and disaggregated reporting on its foreign aid. Moving into these directions again would be a way for OECD donors and China to better bridge the growing divide between the coordinative and communicative spheres of discourse, domestically as well as internationally. Yanguas (2018) suggests that there is a need for a new “moral vision” (Lumsdaine 1993) for aid that is based on “humane internationalism” through a better understanding and acknowledgement of the politics of aid.

For the potential coalition magnet idea of the 2030 Agenda, there is already a broad corridor of convergence. Yet, policy entrepreneurs face the challenge of working across global, regional, and national levels in coordinated ways, constantly reframing the idea of the 2030 Agenda according to these contexts and in ways that enable engagement and awareness among the broader public. This challenge of cultivating collective action across multiple sectors and scales is interconnected with the challenges of making difficult trade-offs across SDG goals and finding ways to hold societal actors accountable for their influence on the SDGs (Bowen et al. 2017). On top of addressing these interconnected governance challenges, policy entrepreneurs are confronted to link the coordinative sphere of discourse of policy construction with the communicative sphere of discourse of deliberation, contestation, and legitimisation (Schmidt 2017).

Going forward, there are many cases where policy entrepreneurs can use the coalition magnet idea of the 2030 Agenda to achieve political change and foster multilateral cooperation. China’s SDG report already states that

China has strengthened economic dialogue and policy coordination with major economies including the US [United States], the EU [European Union], the UK [United Kingdom], France, Germany, India, Japan and Russia with a view to facilitating steady growth of the world economy and improving the development environment for developing countries. (China MOFA 2017, p. 76)

These efforts could be strengthened in line with “reciprocal peer-learning” (Mahn 2017; Pisano and Berger 2016), a learning process among equals. To achieve this goal, policy entrepreneurs have to build upon outreach activities started during the SDG negotiations and mobilise support around a continued global public conversation on the 2030 Agenda.

Overall, we have shown that each idea—mutual benefit, development results, and the 2030 Agenda—faces slightly different challenges in terms of coupling the coordinative and communicative spheres of discourse in addition to the increasing level of divergence between national-level politics and multilateralism. However, we also have demonstrated that each idea is already well anchored on the global and national levels, and if they are used strategically by policy entrepreneurs, they could link international norms to domestic processes of political and social change. Policy entrepreneurs, whether they are political leaders or social activists, need to be grounded in a deep understanding of the domestic context of each country—where they want to achieve political outcomes—to couple the coordinative and communicative spheres of discourse.

We have shown that the concept of coalition magnet ideas is a useful framework for analysing the challenges of international development cooperation, particularly the positions of the OECD donors and China that are seemingly at odds. We have applied the framework to three ideas—mutual benefit, development results, and the 2030 Agenda—and have analysed how each idea could be strategically employed by policy entrepreneurs to foster convergence and political change. Furthermore, we have briefly outlined how policy entrepreneurs can be politically smart in fostering convergence in the current global context of development cooperation, linking the domestic and global levels of policy-making.

Based on our assessment of the three coalition magnet ideas, we draw the following conclusions about the role of ideas in fostering convergence among diverging policy preferences. First, coalition magnet ideas have the potential to bring DAC members and China together around policy prescriptions that fall into a broad corridor of national and international epistemic communities around respective coalition magnet ideas. For mutual benefit, we highlighted global public goods; for development results, we stressed nuanced results reporting; and for the 2030 Agenda, we identified reciprocal learning. Second, we sketched out how coalition magnet ideas can be effective tools for achieving policy change, even in a global environment that is characterised by nationalist tendencies. The key for policy entrepreneurs is to couple policy and communicative discourse through individually targeted policy messages.

Finally, our chapter is only a first general application of the concept of coalition magnet ideas to development cooperation in OECD-DAC countries and China. We have not focused on any discussions “beyond aid” (Janus et al. 2015; Lin and Wang 2016) for instance, which see development cooperation in a larger context of multilateral engagement across many policy areas and communities, such as private-sector actors or trade and investment relations. Hence, further research on mapping coalition magnets across different policy areas and forms of international cooperation could be the next step.

Second, we have not unpacked the detailed processes of how ideas become coalition magnet ideas at the domestic and international levels, beyond the stage of agenda-setting towards implementing policies that lead to actual political change. In particular, it would be pertinent to analyse to what extent policy entrepreneurs from OECD countries and China are able to couple the communicative and coordinative spheres of discourse across domestic and international audiences and epistemic communities. Thus, causal process tracing (Bennett and Checkel 2014; Jacobs 2013) of coalition magnet ideas on the domestic level could be a way to deepen our understanding of how some ideas become influential, while others do not. Third, the examples in this analysis focused on governmental actors driving political change from the top. Additional research could also consider the role of non-governmental actors and social mobilisation around coalition magnet ideas.