Policy Transfer: Willingness and Oversight

Public policy making is the process of conceptualizing problems, providing it to government policy makers, who in turn create solutions that gets evaluated, measured and revised (Sabatier, P. 2007). A Policy transfer on the other hand, is the process of using knowledge from one political setting into the development of ideas in another setting (Dolowitz and Marsh. 2000).

In the article “Policy Transfer: Theory, rhetoric and reality”, the author describes the hurdles of transferring new policies to the UK. It is a challenging endeavour...oftentimes regarded as messy and unpredictable...due to policy makers’ instincts and the lack of organization of knowledge (Duncan, S. 2009).

According to the author public policy in the county had the following characteristics (1)Policy makers have a vast knowledge base when it comes to policy making; (2)Policy makers recognize the need for evidence in the initial direction of ideas; (3)The government utilize international sources to obtain evidence (4)There were successes and failures in replicating international policies (5) Without guidance, policy makers will revert to instincts in policy making.

Willingness is a crucial factor for strong policy transfers (Sabatier, P. 2007). The UK Cabinet Office had willingness to learn, it even had Skills Training for civil servants to analyze foreign data (Duncan, S. 2009). Conflict arose when it came to tailoring the policy for the UK. In addition, the pressure of political timetables resulted in imitation policies.

Had there been a safety net such as an appointed secretary to verify public policies created were tailored to the target and somehow coordinate with private organizations to measure response/progress, and the risk of losing identity.

I have encountered transferred policies from the corporate world - they work. For