Policy Laboratories of the Federal State?
Nomos, 1. Edition 2012, 231 Pages
The product is part of the series
Politik und Demokratie in den kleineren Ländern Europas | Politics and Governance in the Smaller European Democracies
Details
An often-stated advantage of federalist over unitarian states is that decentralized states serve as policy laboratories in which new policies are tested and - if successful - spread to the entire country. It implicitly assumes that federalism promotes policy learning. However, how do policies diffuse? Through which channels are policy relevant information disseminated? To address these questions, empirically, this book analyzes how interdependencies between policy-makers in the federal state of Switzerland influence health policy choices. More precisely, it focuses on governmental subsidies for health insurance premiums, the main social corrective to the otherwise strongly liberal system. Adapting a diffusion framework and using an innovative method, this research provides evidence that policy-makers learn from the experiences of others. Indeed, successful policies do not just spread - rather, they need to be channeled. By facilitating the exchange among policy-makers, institutionalized intergovernmental cooperation is identified as one possible channel for policy diffusion and policy learning. Such institutions are therefore crucial for the states-as-laboratories metaphor to work.
More Information
Edition | 1 |
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ISBN | 978-3-8329-7883-9 |
Subtitle | The Role of Intergovernmental Cooperation in Health Policy Diffusion in Switzerland |
Publication Date | ca. Oct 8, 2012 |
Year of Publication | 2012 |
Publisher | Nomos |
Format | Softcover |
Language | englisch |
Pages | 231 |
Review |
»this is a methodologically sophisticated and theoretically sound study, which contributes to the research on policy diffusion by shedding light on the questions of "how and where" policy learning might occur... For all researchers who are interested in the moderating role of institutions and policy diffusion in fields in which harmonization is politically difficult to achieve but cooperation necessary, this book provides a source of inspiration.« Anita Manatschal, Swiss Political Science Review 3/14 |
Medium | Book |
Product Type | Scientific literature |