Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction ; Chapter 2: A Theory of Diffusion Through Democratic Mechanisms ; Chapter 3: How Americans View Foreign Models ; Chapter 4: National Health Services Across OECD Countries ; Chapter 5: Health Reforms in the UK, Spain and Greece ; Chapter 6: Family Policy Diffusion Across OECD Countries ; Chapter 7: Family Policy Developments in Greece and Spain ; Chapter 8: Conclusions and Implications ; Acronym Table

About the Author

Katerina Linos is Assistant Professor at Berkeley Law School. Her research interests include international law, comparative law, European Union law, employment law and health care law.

Reviews

Katerina Linos's account of policy diffusion is the first to take voters seriously. She perceptively compares diffusion through technocracy with diffusion through democracy, and in the process demonstrates the power of citizens to use media and other information to join the domestic debate over social policy. Finally a sophisticated and convincing account of policy convergence as though local politics matters!
*Beth Simmons, Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs, Harvard University*

Katerina Linos is both political scientist and legal scholar par excellence. She combines state-of-the-art empirical methods with a subtle understanding of international and comparative law. The result is a book that delivers a powerful message built upon rigorous and innovative empirical research. These pages are chocked full of important insights about the relationship between democratic politics and the global legal order. The Democratic Foundations of Policy Diffusion could not come at a better time-when so many countries are reconfiguring their relationships to international organizations and grappling with the maintenance of effective and humane social policies for their own people.
*Ryan Goodman, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Professor of Law, New York University*

When do one nation's reforms-of health care, anti-discrimination, and other domestic programs-influence policies in another? In this path breaking work, Katerina Linos uses opinion polls, case studies, and rigorous statistical analysis to show policies moving across 18 Western democracies, even when domestic leaders claim indifference or opposition to foreign models. Anyone interested in domestic or international politics would benefit from this powerful research to examine how ideologies, economic conditions, and local politics affect domestic choices.
*Martha Minow, Dean and Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor, Harvard Law School*

Linos brings impressive mixed-method analysis to bear on the phenomenon of cross-national policy diffusion... This work has important consequences for the understanding of the influence of international organizations -- policies need not be binding to be persuasive... Essential.
*CHOICE*

For scholars, the book poses as many questions as it answers. For policymakers, it suggests novel ways to build support for policy innovations.
*Foreign Affairs*