Democratic Laboratories Policy Diffusion among the American States 1st Edition by Andrew Karch ISBN 0472069683 978-0472069682

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ISBN 10:0472069683

ISBN 13:978-0472069682

Author:Andrew Karch

“Observers have long marveled at the spread of ideas and policies from state to state in American democracy. But why and how do politicians, professionals, and citizens in one state take inspiration from national policy debates and imitate, resist, and rework legislative models from other states? For the first time in this important new book, Andrew Karch analyzes in depth the process of policy ‘diffusion’ across the states, offering a nuanced and powerful framework to explain one of the most important and recurrent features of U.S. politics.”
—Theda Skocpol, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, Harvard University

“Karch does two things with remarkable skill. First, he makes sense of the copious literature on policy diffusion and extends that literature in a very fruitful way. Second, he conducts the most thorough and methodologically sound empirical study of policy diffusion to date, using both qualitative and quantitative analysis. This book is so well written and thoughtful that it will likely stimulate a whole new wave of study of state policy and its diffusion.”
—Chris Mooney, editor of State Politics and Policy Quarterly

“Democratic Laboratories goes beyond standard ‘diffusion of innovation’ approaches to analyze the complex interaction of interstate and intrastate political forces that shapes policy change. The book is a major contribution to the study of American federalism—and a very good read.”
—Kent Weaver, Brookings Institution

“Andrew Karch has something new and important to say about the states as laboratories of democracies. In his masterful account we learn about the actual process of diffusion of recent health and welfare policy reforms. “

—Virginia Gray, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

“Democratic Laboratories is the seminal work on policy diffusion among the American states. Rigorously designed and well written, it is the new starting place for anyone interested in this important topic. The findings are copious and loaded with insights into the future of this valuable research.”

—Harrell Rodgers, Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, University of Houston

Andrew Karch is Assistant Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of contents: 

1. I. Introduction: The Politics of Policy Diffusion
   How do new ideas spread? What turns a little-known product or behavior into something with widespread popularity? These straightforward questions have captured the popular imagination. Malcolm Gladwell recently wrote a national best seller devoted to the notion that “ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do” (2002). He argued that the best way to understand the emergence of such phenomena as fashion trends and crime waves was to think of them as epidemics. Like an epidemic, modern change tends to occur in one dramatic moment. Rather than building slowly and steadily, change happens in a…
2. II. Enactment as a Political Process
   What factors facilitate or hinder the diffusion of policy innovations? Political scientists tend to focus on patterns of program enactment to answer this question. For decades, scholars of state politics have attempted to explain why innovative programs gain enactment in some states but not in others and why the timing of program adoption differs across states. Given the emphasis on program enactment in the scholarly literature on policy diffusion, enactment marks a logical place to begin our inquiry. This chapter examines patterns of program adoption for five recent innovations in health care and welfare policy: senior prescription drug programs, medical…
3. III. National Activity and State Political Agendas
   When an existing social condition becomes a political issue, elected officials can respond in virtually unlimited ways. For example, they can address dissatisfaction with the education system by creating charter schools, establishing school choice programs, implementing standardized testing, raising teacher salaries and requirements, or taking other steps. Similarly, lawmakers can respond to rising crime rates by hiring additional law enforcement personnel, imposing tougher sentencing guidelines, or pursuing another policy solution. This chapter examines the agenda-setting process, a process that narrows the 
4. IV. National Organizations and the Information Generation Process
   State officials typically have access to libraries and other reference centers whose main job is to collect and distribute information that will be useful during the formulation of public policy. In Virginia, for example, the Legislative Reference Center in Richmond serves the information needs of the Virginia General Assembly. Its collection includes state legislation, legal publications, and topical information to support the research needs of representatives and legislative staff. A shelf near the entrance of the reference center provides introductory materials that describe the information available in the collection. These materials include a bookmark that describes the functions of the…
5. V. Intrastate Forces and the Politics of Customization
   In the foreword to a book on state-level economic policy during the 1980s, Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, used the “laboratories of democracy” metaphor to describe how officials in the states “learn from one another, borrowing, adapting, and improving on each other’s best efforts” (Osborne). This quotation alludes to one of the complexities of policy diffusion, because it implies that lawmakers amend the policy templates that they import. Although officials sometimes copy programs that exist elsewhere, it is more common for them to “adapt” and “improve” these examples. In other words, they customize a policy innovation to…
6. VI. Conclusion
   The American states are sometimes described as “laboratories of democracy” in which it is possible to develop new public policies and to evaluate their effectiveness. In recent years, state officials have enacted a bewildering array of policy innovations across a range of issue areas. These innovations are especially important because they are rarely confined to a single state. The process through which innovative programs spread across the states is known as policy diffusion, and it implies more than an increased number of adoptions. Diffusion implies a process of learning or emulation during which decision makers look to other cities, states,…

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