Abstract

Why do some countries become early policy adopters and fast policy implementers? We investigate this question through the analysis of cross-national policy shift toward childcare deinstitutionalization, i.e., the transition from institutional to community-based provision for children without parental care. The article presents the newly collected data on the adoption of childcare deinstitutionalization policy by 15 countries – previously republics of the Soviet Union. Qualitative comparative analysis is employed to explore the role of national-level attributes affecting the timing of policy adoption and the rate of implementation.

Expectations from political-economy and the institutional world-society perspectives on cross-national patterns of public policy adoption and implementation are incorporated in the hypotheses. Two respective groups of factors are considered: (1) the national economic system and the number of children in institutional care; policy implementation capacity (gross domestic product and government effectiveness); (2) world society ties to international organizations (IOs), conferences and European institutions; and local receptivity to world culture, operationalized as the contraceptive preference for pill. Results suggest that countries’ ties to policy-relevant international organizations are an important condition for earlier policy commitment, which is in line with institutional arguments. The findings point at the need for a more refined conceptualization of cross-national policy patterns for cases where world cultural drivers interplay with political-economic factors.

摘要

为什么有些国家会成为政策的早期采纳者和快速的政策实施者？我们通过分析跨国政策转向儿童保育去机构化来调查这个问题，即从机构到社区为没有父母照料的儿童提供的转变。本文介绍了新收集的有关 15 个国家（前苏联共和国）采用儿童保育去机构化政策的数据。采用定性比较分析来探索影响政策采用时间和实施率的国家级属性的作用。

假设中纳入了来自政治经济学和制度世界社会视角对公共政策采用和实施的跨国模式的期望。分别考虑了两组因素：（1）国民经济体系和机构照料的儿童人数；政策执行能力（国内生产总值和政府效率）；(2) 世界社会与国际组织 (IO)、会议和欧洲机构的联系；和当地对世界文化的接受度，可操作为对避孕药的偏好。结果表明，国家与政策相关国际组织的联系是早期政策承诺的重要条件，这与制度论点一致。