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Four Ways We Can Improve Policy Diffusion Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Fabrizio Gilardi
Fabrizio Gilardi*
Affiliation:
University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
*
Fabrizio Gilardi, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Affolternstrasse 56, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland. Email: gilardi@ipz.uzh.ch
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Abstract

This article puts forward four strategies to improve policy diffusion research in political science: (1) use existing concepts consistently and improve their measurement, (2) clarify whether the goal is to improve the understanding of diffusion itself or to use diffusion research to explain another phenomenon, (3) pay more attention to the quality of the research design, and (4) discuss explicitly the practical implications of diffusion. Taken together, these recommendations trace a distinctive way forward for policy diffusion research.

Keywords

public policypolicy innovation/diffusioncomparative federalismfederalismpolicy process
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 16 , Issue 1: Special Issue Title: Policy Diffusion , March 2016 , pp. 8 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2016

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