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. |
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