Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion

Why do law reforms spread around the world in waves? In the dominant account of diffusion through technocracy, international networks of elites develop orthodox policy solutions and transplant these across countries without regard for the wishes of ordinary citizens. But this account overlooks a critical factor: in democracies, reforms must win the support of politicians, voters, and interest groups. This book claims that laws spread across countries in very publicand politicized ways, and develops a theory of diffusion through democracy. I argue that politicians choose to follow certain international models to win domestic elections, and to persuade skeptical voters that their ideas are not radical, ill-thought-out experiments, but mainstream, tried-and-truesolutions.This book shows how international models generated domestic support for health, family, and employment law reforms across rich democracies. Information that international organizations have endorsed certain reforms or that foreign countries have adopted them is valuable to voters. Public opinion experiments show that even Americans respond positively to this information. Case studies of election campaigns and legislative debates demonstrate that politicians with diverse ideologies referenceinternational models strategically, and focus on the few international organizations and countries familiar to voters. Data on policy adoption from many rich democracies document that governments follow international organization templates and imitate the policy choices of countries heavily covered innational media and familiar to voters. Benchmarks from Abroad provides a direct defense to a major criticism international organizations and networks face: that they conflict with domestic democracy. Even presumptively weak international efforts, such as the development of soft law and best practices, can increase voter support for major reforms. Instead, international and European Union negotiations to establish binding legal obligations can be costly and protracted, resulting in "too little, too late. " However, the bookalso explains how electoral calculations do not favor the spread of successful policies that happen to originate in small and remote states.

Katerina Linos's account of policy diffusion is the first to take voters seriously. She perceptively compares diffusion through technocracy with diffusion through democracy, and in the process demonstrates the power of citizens to use media and other information to join the domestic debate over social policy. Finally a sophisticated and convincing account of policy convergence as though local politics matters!, Katerina Linos is both political scientist and legal scholar par excellence. She combines state-of-the-art empirical methods with a subtle understanding of international and comparative law. The result is a book that delivers a powerful message built upon rigorous and innovative empirical research. These pages are chocked full of important insights about the relationship between democratic politics and the global legal order. The Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion could not come at a better time-when so many countries are reconfiguring their relationships to international organizations and grappling with the maintenance of effective and humane social policies for their own people., When do one nation's reforms-of health care, anti-discrimination, and other domestic programs-influence policies in another? In this path breaking work, Katerina Linos uses opinion polls, case studies, and rigorous statistical analysis to show policies moving across 18 Western democracies, even when domestic leaders claim indifference or opposition to foreign models. Anyone interested in domestic or international politics would benefit from this powerful research to examine how ideologies, economic conditions, and local politics affect domestic choices., Linos brings impressive mixed-method analysis to bear on the phenomenon of cross-national policy diffusion... This work has important consequences for the understanding of the influence of international organizations — policies need not be binding to be persuasive... Essential., For scholars, the book poses as many questions as it answers. For policymakers, it suggests novel ways to build support for policy innovations.

Katerina Linos is Assistant Professor at Berkeley Law School. Her research interests include international law, comparative law, European Union law, employment law and health care law.