Open research questions in Policy Transfer and Learning
62 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 2,351 Policy Transfer and Learning papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.
What the literature leaves open
An open question is whether Republican candidates will suffer electoral punishment as a result, or whether the cuts are hidden enough for the GOP to escape electoral retribution.
Zohlnhöfer and Herweg (2025) address three underexplored concepts in European applications—political parties, macro-level institutions, and Europeanization—calling for their greater inclusion.
By elaborating on the so far understudied power dimension of narratives and its role in the policy process, the study by Graziano and Domorenok theoretically and empirically enhances NPF scholarship.
To begin to address this gap in the literature, a comparative analysis applied four established policy process theories to explain the emergence of the same policy outcome, a set of environmental policies associated with the North American Free Trade Agreement, while varying the analytical space or “field of vision” spatially and temporally.
From Multiple Streams to Muddling Through: Policy Process Theories and “Field of Vision” · 2020 · DOIBruck, and Burton Sapin (1962) proposed that foreign policy should be studied from a decision-making perspective, claiming that the behavior of states was the outcome of how decision makers perceive the international and domestic systems.
Yet, both the German and the Anglo‐Saxon conception of policy networks face a common challenge: first, it still remains to be systematically shown that policy networks do not only exist but are really relevant to policy‐making, and second, the problem of the ambiguity of policy networks has to be tackled, as policy networks can both enhance and reduce the efficiency and legitimacy of policy‐making.
With the emergence of the policy sciences as a confluence of social and decision sciences bearing upon policymaking, a variety of perspectives on implementation are suggested. 1. Implementation may be viewed as a set of socio-political processes flowing from and anticipated by early phases of the policy process. This ultimate necessity is re- cognized in the consideration of technical, economic and political feasibilities in the rational analysis and political negotiation leading to the formulation of policy content. But the process of moving toward realization of the policy content requires more than the tactical and administrative planning that is usually included as part of the policy proposal. The essential continuity of the action with the concept is emphasized by Dror's statement [3, p. 191] that " . . . repolicymaking is needed during the execution of the policy." The content is re-assessed, interpreted, and recast sometimes with care to preserve the core of the original intent, sometimes with thought- ful revision of the original assumptions and objectives, and sometimes as an un- reflective response in terms of bureaucratic conventions or situational constraints which tend to counter the framers' intent. The latter go beyond partisan mutual adjustment or incrementalism, for such dilutions and distortions are not explicit counterproposals but are entropic, diffusive errors. In a self-conscious, relatively guided policymaking system, these variations are not only anticipated but are monitored for system learning and are the subject of both anticipatory and corrective interventions. 2. The notion that policymaking includes the planning and operation of steps toward policy activation has many direct implications for administrative theory and for the design and management of organizations. One such derivative is that adminis- 72 Policy Sciences 3 (1972), 71-80 trative representatives are preferably a party to the policymaking process. Detailed operational plans of the kind that increase the probability that the policy has been framed with awareness of contingencies and an intimate contact with realities, are difficult to pull together without the cooperation of the administrative network exposed to the field; or if they are independently contrived, are likely to meet resistance out of resented exclusion, or ignorance of original intent. But the avoidance of costly interpersonal or interorganizational rivalries is not the only consideration in integrating administrative structures into the policy-formulation-decision system. The key provisions of many policy proposals are direct organizational-managerial guidelines: a. Specification of operational sub-goals. b.
While this has become a major area of policy movement, very little is known about the landscape of these articulation agreements in CTE.
The article shows that the lack of consensus on a single interpretation, which has contributed to the concept's inherent ambiguity, has not hindered its continued use.
The chapter begins by asking 'What is youth justice policy making?', analysing interview data to identify expert stakeholder perceptions of the complexity and lack of consensus around understandings of policy and policy making.
The section invites submissions that push theoretical and methodological boundaries, expand research into underexplored geographies and domains, and tackle the implications of policy innovation for equity, fairness, and justice.
The introduction highlights that South-North policy learning happens much more often than usually believed, but that it is often concealed, underreported and overlooked.
Nevertheless, only few studies have investigated systematically how differences regarding issue salience between policy fields impact on how decision-makers learn from evaluations at the individual level.
Despite the multiplication of instrument typologies, a shared comparative understanding of what instruments are, how they function and what effect they produce is still lacking.
Using Instrument Typologies in Comparative Research: Conceptual and Methodological Trade-Offs · 2021 · DOIThis is important work that is linked closely to current research on policy design but, despite much effort, many fundamental issues remain unknown or understudied with respect to the topic.
The Knowns and Unknowns of Policy Instrument Analysis: Policy Tools and the Current Research Agenda on Policy Mixes · 2020 · DOIHowever, these boards have been understudied within higher education relative to their enormous potential to influence postsecondary institutions and state political dynamics via the ways they engage and leverage political discourse in the agenda setting process.
Hiding in Plain Sight: The Potential of State-Level Governing Boards in Postsecondary Education Policy Agenda-Setting · 2020 · DOIPolicy labs have been increasingly used to generate scientific evidence and political momentum to boost policy experiments, but our understanding of the conditions for knowledge creation and transfer through policy experiments in the labs is scarce.
The Role of Policy Labs in Policy Experiment and Knowledge Transfer: A Comparison across the UK, Denmark, and Singapore · 2019 · DOIYet while the link between policy production and implementation seems vital to explain and prevent policy failure, so far the conceptual tools to assess and compare systematically the barriers to effective vertical coordination are lacking.
Introducing Vertical Policy Coordination to Comparative Policy Analysis: The Missing Link between Policy Production and Implementation · 2019 · DOIOur paper extends that body of research by analysing the, hitherto underexplored, role of hybrid middle managers (HMMs) who combine their professional expertise with management responsibilities to locally forge compromises when implementing national policy interventions.
However, comparative research on policy instruments focuses on their calibration, restrictiveness, density and formal intensity, but does not account for the degree to which they specify the particular policy goal.
However, little is known about how processes of policy layering and institutional legacies play out in (relatively rare) system-wide and transformative policy reforms.
Institutional Legacies and “Sticky Layers”: What Happens in Cases of Transformative Policy Change? · 2017 · DOIYet, policymakers are subject to ‘universal’ processes – limited knowledge, attention and coordinative capacity, and high levels of ambiguity, discretion and complexity in policy processes – which already undermine central control and produce variation.
The ‘Scottish approach’ to policy and policymaking: what issues are territorial and what are universal? · 2015 · DOIAlthough the policy diffusion literature comprises a large number of methodologically sophisticated papers, very little is known about basic issues such as how often states actually look at others’ policies, whose policies they look at, and when they look.
While some officials interviewed for this study did regard policy examples from other countries as a substitute for evidence, especially in areas in which research evidence was insufficient, others appeared to be less confident about its validity and generalisability.
The overall conclusion is that the methodology, appropriate budget and techniques alone are insufficient factors to explain the success of foresight programs.
Most-cited papers in Policy Transfer and Learning
- Organizing Babylon ‐ On the Different Conceptions of Policy Networks · Public Administration · 1998 · 519 citations
- The i-frame and the s-frame: How focusing on individual-level solutions has led behavioral public policy astray · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2022 · 410 citations
- Understanding Policy Transfer: A Multi‐Level, Multi‐Disciplinary Perspective · Public Administration · 1999 · 361 citations
- The Knowns and Unknowns of Policy Instrument Analysis: Policy Tools and the Current Research Agenda on Policy Mixes · SAGE Open · 2020 · 313 citations
- To Bridge the Divide between Evidence and Policy: Reduce Ambiguity as Much as Uncertainty · Public Administration Review · 2016 · 198 citations
- Problem Definition, Agenda Access, and Policy Choice · Policy Studies Journal · 1993 · 179 citations
- Framing and the health policy process: a scoping review · Health Policy and Planning · 2016 · 160 citations
- Interorganizational Policy Implementation: A Theoretical Perspective · Public Administration Review · 1984 · 122 citations
- Policy capacities and effective policy design: a review · Policy Sciences · 2021 · 105 citations
- Understanding Local Policymaking: Policy Elites' Perceptions of Local Agenda Setting and Alternative Policy Selection · Policy Studies Journal · 2010 · 99 citations
Most recent work
- Discourse Networks and Contentious Global Public Policy · JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies · 2026
- Applying Kingdon’s Streams Model to Changes in Gun Policy · Journal of Public Affairs Education · 2026
- Decision-making and policy insiders: the case of France’s healthcare education reform · French Politics · 2026
- Implementation Punctuation: The Role of Feedback, Narratives, and Implementation in the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory · Policy Studies Journal · 2026
- Policy Design and Democratic Accountability · Journal of Health Politics Policy and Law · 2026
- The Power of Framing: Institutional Policy Entrepreneurship in the EU's Wildfire Risk Management (WFRM) · European Policy Analysis · 2026
- The policy cycle’s missing distinction: why strategy is not delivery · Policy Sciences · 2026
- Policy beliefs, governance mismatch, and instrument choices: explaining health policy failure in India · Journal of Asian Public Policy · 2026
- States Counterplan & Politics Harms Real-World Education · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
- Crossmark Policy Page · 2026
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