A fresh analysis of policy convergences across nations, which identifies their key driving forces. To what extent and in which direction can we empirically observe a convergence of national policies? In which areas and for which patterns of policy is convergence more or less pronounced? This text addresses these central questions with clarity and rigour. With growing economic and institutional interlinkages between nation states, it is often assumed that there is an overall trend towards increasingly similar policies across countries. Comparative research on the domestic impact of globalization and European integration, however, reveals that policy convergence can hardly be considered as a dominant and uniform tendency which can be taken for granted. Although a number of factors have been suggested in order to account for the rather mixed empirical picture, we still have limited knowledge about the causes and conditions of cross-national policy convergence. In particular, the central mechanisms and conditions affecting both degree and level of cross-national policy convergence are yet not well understood. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of the European Union, European politics, and international relations. This is a special issue of the leading Journal of European Public Policy.

A fresh analysis of policy convergences across nations, which identifies their key driving forces. To what extent and in which direction can we empirically observe a convergence of national policies? In which areas and for which patterns of policy is convergence more or less pronounced? This text addresses these central questions with clarity and rigour. With growing economic and institutional interlinkages between nation states, it is often assumed that there is an overall trend towards increasingly similar policies across countries. Comparative research on the domestic impact of globalization and European integration, however, reveals that policy convergence can hardly be considered as a dominant and uniform tendency which can be taken for granted. Although a number of factors have been suggested in order to account for the rather mixed empirical picture, we still have limited knowledge about the causes and conditions of cross-national policy convergence. In particular, the central mechanisms and conditions affecting both degree and level of cross-national policy convergence are yet not well understood. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of the European Union, European politics, and international relations. This is a special issue of the leading Journal of European Public Policy.

Over recent decades national environmental policies have converged. This book analyses the international and domestic driving forces behind this process.

Previously published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy, this book draws on the insights of the existing literature on agenda setting and policy changes to explore the dynamics of attention allocation and its consequences. Attention is a crucial variable in understanding modern politics. Shifts in attention have dramatic consequences for both politics and policy decisions. This volume includes case studies of nine different political systems including the US, Canada, several European systems, and the EU itself. It asks the following questions: Which are the dynamics of agenda-setting in the EU? Which role do political parties play in attention allocation? What are the cross national differences in attention to health care? What role does science and expertise play in attention-allocation? What are the effects of political institutions? Comparative Studies of Policy Agendas will be of interest to students and scholars of policy analysis and public policy.