Cross-National Policy Convergence: Concepts, Causes and Empirical Findings

ISBN-13: 9780415374910 / Angielski / Twarda / 2006 / 206 str.

Christoph Knill

Opis

A fresh analysis of policy convergences across nations, which identifies their key driving forces. To what extent and in which direction can we empirically observe a convergence of national policies? In which areas and for which patterns of policy is convergence more or less pronounced? This text addresses these central questions with clarity and rigour. With growing economic and institutional interlinkages between nation states, it is often assumed that there is an overall trend towards increasingly similar policies across countries. Comparative research on the domestic impact of globalization and European integration, however, reveals that policy convergence can hardly be considered as a dominant and uniform tendency which can be taken for granted. Although a number of factors have been suggested in order to account for the rather mixed empirical picture, we still have limited knowledge about the causes and conditions of cross-national policy convergence. In particular, the central mechanisms and conditions affecting both degree and level of cross-national policy convergence are yet not well understood. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of the European Union, European politics, and international relations. This is a special issue of the leading Journal of European Public Policy.

Spis treści

1. Introduction  2. Causes and Conditions of Cross-national Policy Convergence 
3. Is There Convergence in Convergence Research? An Overview of Empirical Studies in the Field of Policy Convergence  4. International Sources of Policy Convergence  5. Globalization, Harmonization, and Competition: The different pathways to policy convergence  6. Central Banks on the Move: Explaining Cross-national Convergence and Diffusion  7. How Context Matters: Regulatory Impact assessment in the European Union
 8. Climate policy convergence in Europe: An assessment based on National Communications to the UNFCCC  9. When the Birds Sing: A Framework for Analyzing Domestic Factors BehindPolicy Convergence  10. Policy Convergence: Critical Assessment and Conclusions

O autorze

Knill, Christoph