The Diffusion of Policy Diffusion Research in Political Science
2012/09/24 by Erin R. Graham, Charles R. Shipan, Craig Volden · 524 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Comparative politics #Diffusion #Diffusion of innovations #Economics #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Epistemology #Law #Order (exchange) #Policy Transfer and Learning #Political Influence and Corporate Strategies #Political science #Politics #Positive economics #Scholarship #Social science #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1017/s0007123412000415
published in British Journal of Political Science 43(3), 673-701 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2012/09/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Abstract
Over the past fifty years, top political science journals have published hundreds of articles about policy diffusion. This article reports on network analyses of how the ideas and approaches in these articles have spread both within and across the subfields of American politics, comparative politics and international relations. Then, based on a survey of the literature, the who, what, when, where, how and why of policy diffusion are addressed in order to identify and assess some of the main contributions and omissions in current scholarship. It is argued that studies of diffusion would benefit from paying more attention to developments in other subfields and from taking a more systematic approach to tackling the questions of when and how policy diffusion takes place.
Citations
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