Osmany Porto de Oliveira – författare

Latin American countries have for a long time been importers of public policies and institutions from the Global North. The colonial legacy and resulting patterns of international relations during the 20th century favoured a course of adoption and hybridization of political institutions. In recent decades, a new conjuncture has emerged in which Latin American policies have started to diffuse South-South and even South-North.

Led by Brazil with Participatory Budgeting and the Bolsa Familia program, other countries in the region soon followed. The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system and bicycle policies in Curitiba and Bogotá have also reached wide international recognition and circulation. And yet, despite Latin America’s new role as a policy "exporter", little is known about its dynamics, causes, and effects. Why have Latin American policies been diffused inside and outside the region? Which actors are involved? What driving forces affect these processes? This innovative collection offers a new perspective on the policy diffusion phenomena. Drawing on different examples from Latin American experiences in urban local policies and national social policies, experts present a new framework to study this phenomenon centered on the mobilization of ideas, interests and discourses for policy diffusion.

Latin America and Policy Diffusion will be of great interest to researchers, educators, advanced students and practitioners working in the fields of political science, public policy, international relations and Latin American Studies.

Latin American countries have for a long time been importers of public policies and institutions from the Global North. The colonial legacy and resulting patterns of international relations during the 20th century favoured a course of adoption and hybridization of political institutions. In recent decades, a new conjuncture has emerged in which Latin American policies have started to diffuse South-South and even South-North.

Led by Brazil with Participatory Budgeting and the Bolsa Familia program, other countries in the region soon followed. The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system and bicycle policies in Curitiba and Bogotá have also reached wide international recognition and circulation. And yet, despite Latin America’s new role as a policy "exporter", little is known about its dynamics, causes, and effects. Why have Latin American policies been diffused inside and outside the region? Which actors are involved? What driving forces affect these processes? This innovative collection offers a new perspective on the policy diffusion phenomena. Drawing on different examples from Latin American experiences in urban local policies and national social policies, experts present a new framework to study this phenomenon centered on the mobilization of ideas, interests and discourses for policy diffusion.

Latin America and Policy Diffusion will be of great interest to researchers, educators, advanced students and practitioners working in the fields of political science, public policy, international relations and Latin American Studies.

Offering a pluralist perspective and focusing on critical areas of research including policy transfer, diffusion, circulation and mobilities, this Handbook overcomes epistemological and methodological cleavages in the field. Opening with a series of discussions on the concepts and advancements in the study of policy transfer, the Handbook moves to an examination of agents and structures involved in the process. The Handbook also sheds light on the role of culture and context, with chapters devoted to Asian, Latin American and European particularities. Altogether, chapters illuminate how rich and provocative the current debate on the interpretation of policies moving across borders is and the vibrancy of the area’s research within the broad planet of public policy analysis.

Presenting a ground-breaking and unique contribution to the area of public policy analysis, the Handbook of Policy Transfer, Diffusion and Circulation will be a useful resource for well-established scholars, researchers, policy-makers and both post graduate and undergraduate students in this field.

This book examines knowledge and policy transfer from the perspectives of Brazil and China. It assesses how these two nations have emerged as providers of ideas and models that contribute to the global offer of public policies. With a variety of case studies in areas such as health, food security and infrastructure, the volume offers new insights into the distinct levels through which knowledge and policy transfers take place, including the local, regional, national and supranational. It develops a multidimensional framework of analysis that considers the agents, objects, and mechanisms for knowledge and policy transfer, as well as the structures and timings within which they operate. Unlike previous studies on policy transfer – which largely focus on North-North and North-South learning processes – this book offers an innovative approach to this area of study. By reflecting on the experiences of these two rising powers, it provides fresh insights on the future of knowledge and policy transfer as global power dynamics shift. This interdisciplinary study will appeal to students and scholars of policy transfer, development studies, international relations and public policy.