Read Anthony Barnetts comments on this piece.
As a government policy-maker in the UK, leading the Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) and the Prime Ministers Strategy Unit (SU), much of my work involves thinking about what we can learn from the rest of the world.
Britain has always been a trading nation, good at importing and exporting goods, ideas and people. But we, like other states, have never before been so willing to import ideas and learn from other countries.
These are just a few examples of Britains own recent borrowings tax credits, early years support and night courts from the United States; welfare-to-work from Scandinavia; neighbourhood wardens from the Netherlands; restorative justice from New Zealand; an independent central bank copied from many countries; urban planning from Barcelona.
A long history of policy import and export
They are part of what can be seen as an emerging global market for ideas. In some respects it is highly novel. But it is also grounded in some universal and timeless characteristics of human nature. First, people are naturally curious about what others do. Second, we know that copying success is likely to be in our interests. Third, we tend to be proud of the things we do well and like to promote them to others.
Together, these characteristics explain why learning from other countries is not new. From the first states in the Middle East and China we find evidence that their neighbours tried to copy techniques how to organise armies, temples, tax collection, administration. They were motivated by a mixture of admiration and fear that, if they didnt keep up, they would be conquered.
Throughout history the really useful innovations have spread quickly. Some spread through conquest legal systems, like the Napoleonic Code, are a good example. Some innovations take root because they catch the imagination of the public: universal suffrage (building on gradual extensions of the franchise to propertied and male voters in 19th century Europe) spread from New Zealand (1893) to Finland (1906) and Norway (1913), Germany (1918) and Poland (1921), Britain (1928) and France (1944).
Other innovations diversify because they capture the imagination of governments. Income tax is a classic case. It was introduced in Britain in 1842, then Sweden in 1861, Italy in 1864, Japan in 1867 and across Germany in the following years. As with so many fiscal innovations, this happened because all governments realised that their tax base had a profoundly important bearing on their ability to defend themselves. Value-added tax (VAT) followed the pattern of income tax a century later.
Other innovations spread because governments faced parallel, transnational pressures. Social security is one illustration of this. It spread from Bismarcks Germany via the Liberal reforms in Britain from 1906-10, until almost every industrialised country followed suit encouraged in part by fear of the growing labour movement.
Concepts are the unit of policy transfer
What spreads is a concept or, if preferred, a policy meme that diffuses widely through example, and in due course through a rather blunt process of natural selection.
These concepts are not the same as their application. All policy ideas have to be adapted to different cultural and institutional environments, improved and reshaped until sometimes their origins are unrecognisable. But it is the concept, often in a rather pure form, that spreads. In the past generation alone, there are some striking manifestations of this: monetarism; quasi-markets for health; public service broadcasting; equal opportunities; renewable energy; regulated utilities.
Concepts are linked to intellectual systems
Concepts rarely travel alone. They usually spread because of the power of the system of which they are a part. Sometimes these are intellectual disciplines or paradigms. The paradigm of neo-classical economics is particularly hegemonic at the moment, and is continuing to spread its concepts into neighbouring fields: road pricing, internalisation of externalities, vouchers for learning, insurance for long-term care.
The development of new approaches to the labour market is a prominent recent example. Many of the most successful models were designed by labour market economists, then pioneered in Scandinavia, particularly Sweden and more recently Denmark (or, for lone parents, in the US). Next, they were successfully promoted by bodies like the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and reinforced as the academic work became more sophisticated, able to draw on extensive evaluation.
Economics is remarkably dominant now. Classical history played a similar role a century ago in providing a common intellectual frame of reference. Looking ahead, it is highly likely that other disciplines will become dominant diffusers of ideas. Ecological and systems ideas may prove a strong contender it is possible that where most policy-makers today see markets of consumers and producers, in ten or twenty years time we will all automatically see systems of matter, energy and waste.
At the moment ecology is being squeezed to fit into economics. In the future the reverse may be true. Certainly the environmentalists have the right mix of powerful theories, practical applications and a network of experts, consultants, and authors.
Another set of contending systems come from psychology, anthropology and sociology analysts of the intangible aspects of how people and organisations work. These viewpoints have already significantly challenged the narrower versions of economics in the last decade, promoting the importance of social capital, well-being, and culture for both analysis and policy design.
Sometimes the systems which spread concepts around the world are ideological. Marxism-Leninism was for a time hugely successful at diffusing policy ideas across the world, from Vietnam to Angola. Social Democracy and Christian Democracy played a similar, though more benign role after the second world war, helped by research and policy institutions like the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
The most successful ideology of recent decades has been neo-liberalism. Like Marxism, it has taken care to present itself as a science. Born in the academy, the ideas of Austrian economics were slowly matured in bodies like the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Adam Smith Institute, further developed in economics departments, waiting for the time when the policy environment would be propitious. Such a moment arrived in the US and Britain in the 1980s, and in many former communist countries in the 1990s.
Neo-liberalisms influence has been waning for some time because of its poor analysis of motivation, culture, public goods and the collective handling of risk, and because of the political backlash against the damaging effect of its ideas in practice. A more centrist, or centre-left ideological position, is now at least partly dominant in institutions like the World Bank and most of the OECD countries. It has brought with it a far greater emphasis on the positive role that government and governance can play.
However, as was the case with Marxism a generation ago, neo-liberalisms continuing influence can be seen in the extent to which many decision-makers have simply internalised its doctrines.
From practice to theory
In each of these cases theory has led practice. Yet in matters of public policy concepts dont necessarily come from theories. They can be embodied in applications, with the theory coming later. This can be seen through the lens of one of the most important diffusions of the last century: the influence of Keynesian economics, in particular demand management to sustain full employment.
During the 1920s and 1930s Keynesianism in different forms was separately discovered in New Zealand, Scandinavia, and in Roosevelts America. This all took place before, not after, the theory had been first formalised by Keynes himself, and was then popularised (some said bastardised) to become the conventional wisdom of the post-1945 era. In this case, as with much science, the story is in part of parallel invention, great minds thinking alike.
Today a good deal of conceptual innovation is taking place through practice. There are relatively few areas in which academics develop theoretical frameworks which others then apply. More often in cases as diverse as intelligence-led policing or drugs rehabilitation or the academic writings on the third way the theorists are following behind, trying to make sense of what the practitioners are doing.
This may be particularly true because of the rather non-ideological climate in which policy is being made. We are now in a phase when concepts are more promiscuous. Most governments profess to be more interested in what works than what makes ideological sense and that means that there is likely to be a greater willingness to see practice rather than theory as the best source of ideas.
Concepts spread through networks
How then do ideas gain currency? The short answer is that memes and concepts generally expand through networks. There has always been a good deal of sharing within professions such as medicine, engineering and planning, helped by the paraphernalia of journals and conferences. Some spreading took place through ideological networks: the diffusion of central planning via the Comintern, or of social insurance models through the networks formed around Christian Democracy, or later the expansion of market concepts through the intellectual and political networks of neo-liberal conservatism.
Today, there are also plenty of formal institutions to help: the OECD, European Union, UN, and the World Health Organisation (WHO) all produce ample analysis, case studies and recommendations.
But the biggest change must be the sheer speed and volume of todays traffic in ideas which is made possible by websites like www.policybrief.org, www.openDemocracy.net or the World Bank, and search engines which allow you to accumulate thousands of examples in seconds. These are still in some senses prototypes their future counterparts will presumably be able to sift better by quality of evidence, to manage and interpret. Yet they have already transformed the day-to-day business of policy-making.
Broadly speaking there are three kinds of policy field, each of which requires a different kind of approach.
Stable policy fields
The first kind of policy field is composed of areas where knowledge is settled; governments broadly know what works; there is a strong evidence base; and the most that can be expected is some incremental improvement.
In these examples macro- and some micro-economics, some curative and preventive health the field is closer to a normal science. The professional bodies and leading experts can generally be relied on to give good advice; we can quite easily benchmark ourselves against the best; and good innovations tend to spread fairly quickly through formal networks.
Policy fields in flux
The second category belongs to areas where most people recognise that things need to change; that policies which once worked are no longer working. In these areas a fair amount of education, welfare and pensions, the organisation of public services there is often a great deal of fertility and experimentation. However, evidence, which is by its nature backward-looking, is often not very useful. It may reveal the weaknesses of policy. But it is unlikely to give convincing evidence about what works.
The professions in these fields are often as much part of the problem as the solution, and may be resistant to criticism. Their usual networks may be the last to recognise the need for change, and the most promising innovations are likely to come from the margins. In these areas comparisons are essential, but they are more like explorations which provide insights.
Inherently novel policy fields
The third category consists of areas of inherent novelty: biotechnology and its regulation; egovernment; privacy on the net; new forms of governance at the European or global level. No one knows for sure what works or what doesnt because these are virgin territories; the pioneers are likely to make the most mistakes; the experts will only be just ahead of the amateurs. The task of good government is to keep a very close eye on what is and isnt working, so that we can at least reduce the proportion of mistakes we make.
Where and how to look?
In each of these categories we need to think differently about both where, and how, to look. During the 1980s and 1990s much of the trade in policy ideas was dominated by the English-speaking world. One of the reasons was laziness and linguistic deficiency the British especially are not renowned for our prowess in reading Finnish or Malay.
Another reason for this one-sidedness was the power of English-language media like Time, the Financial Times and the Economist which are all excellent but sometimes indirectly foster an assumption on the part of many opinion-formers that everything worth knowing is already available in English, or that the Anglo-American way must be the best (an assumption which is remarkably resistant to contrary evidence).
More recently, however, the network of ideas has become more heterogeneous. Many of the best ideas and projects are now coming from smaller countries (such as Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Singapore and Korea), and within North America from states and provinces rather than the federal capitals. Australasia (perhaps benefiting from sheer distance) has often been particularly innovative from Perths remarkable experiments with cutting road use to New Zealands public service reforms.
Certainly, when set against rigorous benchmarking measures of competitiveness, employment, innovation, social results or environmental quality the smaller countries (and regions of larger ones) have done better in recent years. Within the United States, there has been much more innovation far from the Washington Beltway, in Illinois, Florida, Oregon and Texas.
One reason for this may be that smaller entities are more attuned to their external environment, aware that it will shape them more than they will shape it, less attached to the illusions and complacency that scale breeds. Another may be that they are closer to the fields where much of the best innovation is coming from: the non-profit movement, social entrepreneurs, and the businesses in the new e-economy. The conclusion is clear: in looking for promising approaches to social care, or housing policy, or transport, it is vital to look beyond the large western nations.
Increasingly, too, good ideas are making the transition from the poor south to the rich north like the astonishing transport successes of the Brazilian city of Curitiba, or the micro-credit models of the Grameen bank from Bangladesh, or some of the drugs projects in Asia which take a more sophisticated approach than the rather crude dependence on a treatment / enforcement approach which still predominates in many countries.
Some of this exchange has been helped by the multilateral organisations, which not only analyse and promote ideas in a very pragmatic way but have also pioneered methods of policy analysis and project design and appraisal which are now significantly more sophisticated than those used in the north.
Benchmarking: the way we learned
For most of the last century the UK has tended to see itself as a policy exporter the BBC, National Health Service, a meritocratic civil service, privatisation or, to take a recent example, Singapores decision to copy our National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs).
However, we now accept that we can learn from others. We live in a world where people much more naturally make international comparisons and see much more quickly if our trains work worse, our CDs cost more or our streets have more homeless people on them.
Within the UK, transparency and benchmarking have been remarkably powerful tools for promoting a demand for new ideas or better practices in the public services if your school or hospital is doing notably worse than others in comparable areas, you can no longer hide behind excuses.
The same applies internationally. Benchmarking has become a core principle of the OECD and the European Union the latter often encouraged by the current UK government. We sometimes talk glibly about it. But it can be a demanding discipline, and it can reveal surprising gaps and problems.
The best examples I have seen come from the smaller countries of Europe. Denmark publishes a regular and detailed benchmarking analysis of where the country stands; the Netherlands has just produced its most recent benchmarking of competitiveness.
We have started preparing something similar in the UK. The results are instructive. On productivity, for example, we know we perform worse than the US but rarely acknowledge that we are even further behind Belgium and other European countries on some counts, particularly hourly productivity.
In other areas, we know how badly we rate on literacy, social exclusion, and teenage pregnancy; but we were surprised to discover that our schools are doing fairly well on average in preparing 15-year olds.
In relation to long-term unemployment, where the position has significantly improved, we are still in the middle rank. On some other measures, such as perceptions of corruption or liberty, its worrying that we are not in the first rank. On others, like the productivity of science or completion of higher education degrees, we are world class.
The great value of benchmarking is that it forces us to ask why we are doing worse than we might like, and what we can learn from others, particularly the positive deviants (the countries which are doing better than they might be expected to do). In principle, it also reduces the risk of copying bad policies the ones with impressive public relations but which dont actually work.
Benchmarking doesnt on its own tell you what policies to learn from: but it does tell you where to look.
What makes people learn?
It is notorious that people do not copy best practice. Building a better policy mousetrap does not guarantee that the world rushes to learn from your invention. Other motives are necessary: fear, threats of takeover or oblivion, or a culture that visibly values learning and curiosity.
As in other areas, all the paraphernalia of journals, databases, websites and best practice guides are still less influential than face-to-face interactions. Studies of technology transfer have repeatedly shown that conferences and demonstrations remain the most potent engine of transfer. Nothing can quite compare with the visit where you see things, meet the people involved and are touched by the passion or magic which they bring to it.
It may be that our cognitive make-up means that until we see something it rarely has much emotional impact. It is only when it has had an emotional impact that we become champions, and have the energy to break down the barriers which always stand in the way of change.
How can knowledge best be managed?
In matters of policy every nation is different; its history, culture, and institutions are unique. But every nation also now operates in a global commons a shared space of knowledge, experiment and experience.
For us in the PIU and SU, that means combining all of the tools in our toolkit models, logic trees, scenarios with rigorous work to scan the world to identify the promising innovations, and the crucial lessons. It means making use of a network of contacts in the embassies, which increasingly see themselves as channels for policy learning as well as more traditional diplomacy. And it means developing skills to distinguish the paper accounts of policies from their reality.
In all of this what still matters most is the ability to exercise judgment to synthesise and assess a wide range of different types of knowledge, from data and science to opinions and politics.
International learning is no substitute for judgment. But exposure to the rest of the world helps us to make better judgments, to think more creatively, to see around corners, to distinguish the superficial from the profound, so that we can learn the good things from other countries and be spared the mistake of learning the bad things.
The ultimate prize is that, in this emerging global commons, the governments which are quickest on their feet, most willing to adapt and learn, will be the ones that serve their citizens best.