The National Origins of Policy Ideas: Knowledge Regimes in the United States, France, Germany, and Denmark

Description

In politics, ideas matter. They provide the foundation for economic policymaking, which in turn shapes what is possible in domestic and international politics. Yet until now, little attention has been paid to how these ideas are produced and disseminated, and how this process varies between countries. The National Origins of Policy Ideas provides the first comparative analysis of how "knowledge regimes"--communities of policy research organizations like think tanks, political party foundations, ad hoc commissions, and state research offices, and the institutions that govern them--generate ideas and communicate them to policymakers. John Campbell and Ove Pedersen examine how knowledge regimes are organized, operate, and have changed over the last thirty years in the United States, France, Germany, and Denmark. They show how there are persistent national differences in how policy ideas are produced. Some countries do so in contentious, politically partisan ways, while others are cooperative and consensus oriented. They find that while knowledge regimes have adopted some common practices since the 1970s, tendencies toward convergence have been limited and outcomes have been heavily shaped by national contexts. Drawing on extensive interviews with top officials at leading policy research organizations, this book demonstrates why knowledge regimes are as important to capitalism as the state and the firm, and sheds new light on debates about the effects of globalization, the rise of neoliberalism, and the orientation of comparative political economy in political science and sociology.

John L. Campbell is the Class of 1925 Professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College and professor of political economy at the Copenhagen Business School. Ove K. Pedersen is professor of comparative political economy at the Copenhagen Business School. Their many books include "The Rise of Neoliberalism and Institutional Analysis" (Princeton).

"The historical and comparative analytical approach, further strengthened by elite interviews and archival research, reveals the following country-specific characteristics of knowledge regimes: heterogeneity of ideas, self-critical attitude, comparatively uniform and analytical sophistication, and a nonideological and inclusive approach."--Choice "The book is an important contribution that opens up new ways of thinking about the production of policy ideas as well as analytical strategies for systematic empirical research... The National Origins of Policy Ideas brings our understanding of knowledge regimes to a new level."--Daniel Nohrstedt, Public Administration