Routledge Learning From Comparative Public Policy: A Practical Guide

Product Description This textbook offers a fresh approach to the study of comparative politics and public policy. Instead of concentrating on why countries differ, Learning From Comparative Public Policy explores how countries can learn from each other about the success and failure of policy initiatives. With its theory and practice focus, the lively narrative analyzes the cultural and resources problems involved in importing policies, and the roles of institutions, regulators, think tanks and experts.In addition to explaining the key tenets of policy analysis, the internationally renowned author offers a wide variety of international case studies and useful boxes to highlight examples. Invaluable reading for students of public policy, for policy makers and practitioners working in the public sector, it includes:* learning from comparison* defining a problem and creating awareness* where to look for lessons* applying the policy model* the problems of importing models* using terms to evaluate future consequences. Review Persuasively argues for the important potential for learning policy lessons from other countries. -- Hal Wolman, George Washington University, USA This book is an outstanding contribution to the literature. -- Edward C. Page, LSE, UK About the Author Professor Richard Rose is Director of the Centre for the Study of Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde. He is a fellow of the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His writings have been translated into eighteen languages. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction: Why learn lessons from abroad? It is always right for one who dwells in a well-ordered state to go forth on a voyage of enquiryby land and sea so as to confirm thereby such of his native laws as are rightly enacted andto amend any that are deficient.Plato, Laws The goal of this book is ambitious: it is to help readers deal with problems ofpublic policy by drawing lessons from the experience of other governments. Theobject of looking abroad is not to copy but to learn under what circumstancesand to what extent programmes effective elsewhere may also work here.Moreover, the failures of other governments offer lessons about what not to doat far less political cost than making the same mistakes yourself.There is nothing novel in lesson-drawing. More than 2,300 years ago Aristotlestudied the different ways in which Greek cities governed themselves in orderto learn how to create the best political system. Having fought on the losingside in the Peloponnesian wars, Thucydides sought lessons about homelandsecurity from the way in which disputes between nominal allies had ledto defeat. The authors of the American constitution looked to Europe for lessons.Many of its most distinctive features reflected lessons about what not todo, learned from King George IIIs England. When Thomas Jefferson readMontesquieu he was doing so not to improve his French but in order todraw lessons that could be applied in writing the constitution of the UnitedStates.This book is for readers who want to deal with problems in the real world ofpolitics. It rejects the apolitical complaint of World Bank management consultants:The problem is not that one does not know what to do. The problemis that sociopolitical and bureaucratic obstacles in each country impede or blockthe implementation of good practices (quoted in Olsen and Peters, 1996: 10).This book accepts that politics matters.In a world in which people, money, and ideas increasingly move acrossnational boundaries, this book challenges national policymakers to abandon the belief that the only wheel worth using is one that is invented at home.Policymakers can learn how improvements might be made by looking elsewhere.After all, that is how Japan turned from being a country that imported automobilesto being the worlds biggest exporter of cars. The need to learn The first prio