Project Details
Projekt
From expert authority to policy transfer. How and under which conditions does IPA policy advice matter?
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Andrea Liese
Subject Area
Political Science
Term
from 2016 to 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 198360606
In the first phase of the Research Unit, we found that the attributions of expert authority to international public administrations (IPAs) vary across IPAs, across policy areas and across states. Given that expert authority is regarded as a major source of an independent influence of IPAs, we expect the observed cross-national variations in attributions of expert authority to IPAs to affect the impact of IPAs on domestic policymaking. Therefore, and in light of existing research gaps, the proposed research project asks and explores to what extent, under which conditions and how expert authority of IPAs affects the decisions of states to voluntarily follow the policy advice of IPAs by adopting policies, establishing administrative arrangements or creating institutions. If such decisions are made, they are best captured as successful and voluntary policy transfers from IPAs to states, given that policy transfer is typically understood as a process in which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements or institutions from one organisation is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements or institutions in another organisation. Our research design is x-centred and comparative. We combine quantitative and qualitative research methods in the comparative analysis of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank, including statistical analysis, cross-case comparisons and process tracing. We draw extensively on concepts and use a large portion of our data and findings from the first phase. In the first of the three interrelated analytical steps, the project will measure the effects of (varying levels of) expert authority on access of IPAs to national policy-makers, because this may be the first step in a causal pathway from expert authority to successful policy transfer. In the second step, the project will identify the extent to and conditions under which expert authority affects successful policy transfers. In the third step, we use in-depth case studies in four countries to study potential causal mechanisms of policy transfers by IPAs. Overall, we contribute to the Research Unit by singling out the effects of expert authority on domestic policymaking and policy transfers.
DFG Programme
Research Units
Ehemaliger Antragsteller
Dr. Per-Olof Busch, until 2/2020
