Exactly what it says – “Well, policy X worked in China/Japan/Korea, wherever the flavour is the month is, so we will import it wholesale here, and if it doesn’t work, well, it’s not MY fault…”
On the perils of policy borrowing…
Gita Steiner‐Khamsi, 2006.The economics of policy borrowing and lending: a study of late adopters. Oxford Review of Education Volume 32 Issue 5, 2006 pages 665-678 DOI: 10.1080/03054980600976353
Abstract
The article draws on interpretive frameworks from diffusion research and social network analysis to explore one particular ‘travelling reform’—outcomes‐based education—that went global. The argument is made that by virtue of studying late adopters of a travelling reform one is examining globalisation. The cases in point for late adoption are Central Asian education systems (in particular Mongolia and Kyrgyz Republic) that borrowed outcomes‐based education reforms at a time when the popularity of similar reforms were already in decline in other countries, notably in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. The emphasis of this study is on the timing of policy borrowing, and it is suggested that more attention is given to the economics of policy borrowing.
marchudson.net 