Abstract
The literature on cross-national policy transfer indicates that policy failure is almost certain when the policy of a developed country is transferred to a developing country. This is especially the case in public sector reform with some scholars arguing that new public management (NPM) is inappropriate for developing countries. Nevertheless international financial institutions like the World Bank have circulated NPM reforms as models for solving public administrative problems irrespective of cultural, economic and political differences.
The Public Sector Modernization Project in Jamaica serves as an exception to the conventional view of policy transfer failure. It has been successful to date and the reform pattern is set to continue. This mixed-methods research investigates why Jamaica adopted the British EA model in the reform of its public sector given the prevailing ideas on policy transfer. It argues that mimetic processes and coercive isomorphism influenced the adoption of the model but more so the latter. Normative pressures played an insignificant role in the transfer.
The transfer process was one of emulation as opposed to a straightforward copying. The implementation was slower than normal and was deliberate on the part of the Jamaican government in order to test the model and provide for unintended consequences. The end result is the creation of eight executive agencies that have performed creditably to date in key performance indicators. As such this research opens up the discourse on cross-national policy transfer by arguing that although the reform in Jamaica is not in an advanced stage, certain patterns of success have started to emerge which defy conventional wisdom on policy transfer.
The literature on cross-national policy transfer indicates that policy failure is almost certain when the policy of a developed country is transferred to a developing country. This is especially the case in public sector reform with some scholars arguing that new public management (NPM) is inappropriate for developing countries. Nevertheless international financial institutions like the World Bank have circulated NPM reforms as models for solving public administrative problems irrespective of cultural, economic and political differences.
The Public Sector Modernization Project in Jamaica serves as an exception to the conventional view of policy transfer failure. It has been successful to date and the reform pattern is set to continue. This mixed-methods research investigates why Jamaica adopted the British EA model in the reform of its public sector given the prevailing ideas on policy transfer. It argues that mimetic processes and coercive isomorphism influenced the adoption of the model but more so the latter. Normative pressures played an insignificant role in the transfer.
The transfer process was one of emulation as opposed to a straightforward copying. The implementation was slower than normal and was deliberate on the part of the Jamaican government in order to test the model and provide for unintended consequences. The end result is the creation of eight executive agencies that have performed creditably to date in key performance indicators. As such this research opens up the discourse on cross-national policy transfer by arguing that although the reform in Jamaica is not in an advanced stage, certain patterns of success have started to emerge which defy conventional wisdom on policy transfer.
