Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-m8qmq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T15:25:11.025Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

What is Lesson-Drawing?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Richard Rose
Affiliation:
Public Policy, University of Strathclyde*

Abstract

Lesson-drawing addresses the question: Under what circumstances and to what extent can a programme that is effective in one place transfer to another. Searching for fresh knowledge is not normal; the second section describes the stimulus to search as dissatisfaction with the status quo. Lessons can be sought by searching across time and/or across space; the choice depends upon a subjective definition of proximity, epistemic communities linking experts together, functional interdependence between governments, and the authority of intergovernmental institutions. The process of lesson-drawing starts with scanning programmes in effect elsewhere, and ends with the prospective evaluation of what would happen if a programme already in effect elsewhere were transferred here in future. Lesson-drwaing is part of a contested political process; there is no assurance that a lesson drawn will be both desirable and practical. The conclusion considers the uncertainty and instability of judgements about the practicality and desirability of transferring programmes.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Aho, Michael and Marc, Levinson (1988). After Reagan: Confronting the Changed World Economy. New York: Council on Foreign Relations.Google Scholar
Anderson, Charles W. (1978). ‘The Logic of Public Problems: Evaluation in Comparative Policy Research’. In Ashford, Douglas, ed., Comparing Public Policies. Beverly Hills, CA.:, Sage Publications, 1942.Google Scholar
Bennett, Colin J. (1988). ‘Different Processes, One Result: the Convergence of Data Protection Policy in Europe and the United States’, Governance, 1, 4, 162–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, Colin J. (1991). ‘How States Utilize Foreign Evidence’, Journal of Public Policy, 11, 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, Frances Stokes and Berry, William D. (1990). ‘State Lottery Adoptions as Policy Innovations’, American Political Science Review 84, 2, 395416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braybrooke, David and Lindblom, C. E. (1963). A Strategy of Decision. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Camdessus, Michel (1980). ‘Managing Director's Response’, IMF Survey, 16 04, 115.Google Scholar
Carlson, B. L., Koenig, Johanna and Reid, G. L. (1986). Lessons from Europe: the Role of the Employment Security System. Washington, DC: National Governors’ Association.Google Scholar
CMND. 9823, (1986). Working Together – Education and Training. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Cohen, Michael D., March, James G. and Olsen, Johan P., (1972). ‘A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 17, 1, 125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collier, David and Messick, Richard E. (1975). ‘Prerequisites versus Diffusion: Testing Alternative Explanations of Social Security Adoption’, American Political Science Review 69, 4, 12991315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, Richard N. (1989). ‘International Cooperation in Public Health as a Prologue to Macroeconomic Cooperation’, in Cooper, R. N. et al. , Can Nations Agree? Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 178254.Google Scholar
Council of State Governments, 1990. Book of the States 1990–91. Lexington: Ky.: Council of State Governments.Google Scholar
Cyert, R. and March, J. G. (1963). A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Day, Patricia and Klein, Rudolf (1989). ‘Interpreting the Unexpected: the case of AIDS policymaking in Britain’, Joumal of Public Policy 9, 3, 337–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deutsch, K. W. (1963). The Nerves of Government. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Dogan, Mattei and Pelassy, Dominique (1984). How to Compare Nations: Strategies in Comparative Politics. Chatham NJ:, Chatham House.Google Scholar
Dommergues, P.Sibille, H. and Wurzburg, E. (1989). Mechanisms for fob Creation: Lessons from the United States. Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Etheredge, Lloyd S. (1981). ‘Government Learning: an Overview’, 73161, in Long, Samuel L., ed., The Handbook of Political Behavior, vol. 2. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Goode, Richard A. (1984). Government Finance in Developing Countries. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Grady, Dennis O. and Chi, Keon S. (1980). The Role of External Actors in the Formulation and Implementation of State Government Innovations.San Francisco:American Political Science Association annual meeting.Google Scholar
Haas, Ernst B. (1980). When Knowledge Is Power: Three Models of Change in International Organizations. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Haas, Peter, forthcoming. Effluents and Influence: the Politics of Mediterranean Pollution Control. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Peter A. ed., (1989). The Political Power of Economic Ideas. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heclo, Hugh (1978). ‘Issue Networks and the Executive Estabishment’, in King, A. S., ed., The New American Political System. Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute, 87124.Google Scholar
Hoberg, George Jr (1991). ‘Sleeping with an Elephant: the American Influence on Canadian Environmental Legislation’, Journal of Public Policy, 11, 1.Google Scholar
Kahler, Miles (1988). ‘Organization and Cooperation: International Institutions and Policy Coordination’, Journal of Public Policy 8, 3/4, 373402.Google Scholar
Kelman, Steven (1981). What Price Incentives? Economists and the Environment. Boston: Auburn House.Google Scholar
Kingdon, John W. (1984). Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. (1962). Th Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Majonc, Giandomenico. (1991). ‘Cross-National Sources of Regulatory Policymaking in Europe and the United States’, Journal of Public Policy, 11, 1.Google Scholar
Marmor, Theodore C. with Fellman, Philip. (1986). ‘Policy Entrepreneurship in Government’, Journal of Public Policy 6, 3, 225–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muniak, Dennis (1985). ‘Policies that Don't Fit: Words of Caution on Adopting Overseas Solutions to American Problems’, Policy Studies Journal, 14, 1, 119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neustadt, Richard E. and Fineberg, Harvey (1983). The Epidemic that Never Was. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Neustadt, Richard E. and May, Ernest R. (1986). Thinking in Time: the Uses of History for Decision Makers. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Nye, Joseph S. Jr and Keohane, Robert E. (1971). ‘Conclusion’. In Keohane, and Nye, , eds., Transnational Relations and World Politics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 371–98.Google Scholar
OECD (1988). Why Economic Policies Change Course: Eleven Case Studies. Paris: OECD.Google Scholar
Polsby, Nelson (1984). Policy Innovation in America. New Haven: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pressman, Jeffrey and Wildavsky, Aaron (1974). Implementation. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam and Teune, Henry (1970). The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry. New York: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Rogers, Everett M. (1983). The Diffusion of Innovations. New York: The Free Press, 3rd ed.Google Scholar
Rose, Richard (1972). ‘The Market for Policy Indicators’, 119–41, in Shonfield, A. and Shaw, S., eds., Social Indicators and Social Policy. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Rose, Richard (1985). ‘The Programme Approach to the Growth of Government’, British Journal of Political Science, 15, 1, 118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Richard (1987). ‘Steering the Ship of State: One Tiller but two Two Pairs of Hands’, British Journal of Political Science 17, 4, 409433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Richard (1991). ‘Comparing Forms of Comparative Analysis’, Political Studies, 39.Google Scholar
Rose, Richard, forthcoming. Lesson-Drawing Across Time and Space. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Rose, Richard and Wignanek, Günter (1990). Training without Trainers? Avoiding the Supply-Side Bottleneck. London: Anglo-German Foundation.Google Scholar
Savage, Robert L. (1985). ‘Diffusion Research Traditions and the Spread of Policy Innovation in a Federeal System’, Publius, 15, 4, 128.Google Scholar
Simon, Herbert A. (1978). ‘Rationality as Process and as Product of Thought’, American Economic Review, 68, 2, 116.Google Scholar
Simon, Herbert A. (1979). ‘Rational Decision Making in Business Organizations’, American Economic Review, 69, 4, 493513.Google Scholar
Tait, Alan A. (1988). Value-Added Tax: International Practice and Problems. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund.Google Scholar
Walker, Jack L. (1969). ‘The Diffusion of Innovation among American States’, American Political Science Review, 63, 3, 880–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westney, D. Eleanor (1987). Imitiation and Innovation: the Transfer of Western Organizational Patterns to Meiji Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar