A typical image of the making and administration of policy suggests that it takes place on an incremental basis, involving public servants, their ministers and, to a more limited extent, a variety of interest groups. Yet, much policy making is based on similar policy developed in other jurisdictions and in the major international organizations such as the WTO and the OECD. In other words, significant aspects of nationally developed policies are copied from elsewhere in what is described as a process of policy transfer and learning.

Introduction (Peter Carroll and Richard Common) Part I: Degrees of Transfer and Their Determinants 1. When Policy Diffusion does not lead to Policy Transfer: Explaining Resistance to International Learning in Public Management Reform (Richard Common) 2. Policy Transfer and Local Government Performance Improvement Regimes (Sandra Nutley, James Downe, Steve Martin and Clive Grace) 3. Low Impact Development - The Transfer that was Not?: How the Federal Relationship in the Area of Environmental Protection Facilitates Innovation but Mitigates against Transfer (David P. Dolowitz) 4. Policy Transfer in New Democracies: Challenges for Public Administration (Riin Kruusenberg and Tiina Randma-Liiv) 5. Why can't you Lead a Horse to Water and make it Drink?: The Learning Oriented Transfer of Health Sector Decentralization Reforms and Bureaucratic Interests in Malawi (Richard I.C. Tambulasi) Part II: New Developments in Transfer and Learning 6. Sources of Transfer: The Case of Accession to International Organizations (Peter Carroll) 7. Borrowing from the Neighbours: Policy Transfer to Tackle Climate Change in the Australian Federation (Robyn Hollander) 8. "These are the People You Need to Talk to": The Role of Non-State Organizations in International Policy Transfer to Ireland's Official Languages Act (2003) (Clare Rigg, Muiris Ó Laoire and Vasiliki Georgiou) 9. Contested Policy Transfer: When Chile's 'Programa de Mejoramiento de la Gestión' Travelled to Mexico (Mauricio Dussauge-Laguna) Conclusions (Peter Carroll and Richard Common)