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Are Cultural Differences Between Nations a Barrier to Cross-National Policy Learning?

Award ES/J00460X/1

John Hudson University of York, UK

Nam K. Jo SungKongHoe University, South Korea

Antonia Keung University of York, UK

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Overview

• Draw together two strands of research

• Policy transfer/policy learning processes

• Impact of culture on politics of welfare policy

• Some initial reflections

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Policy Transfer & Culture

• Often shapes search for lessons

• Key to understanding national differences

• Said to influence policy success in host country…

• …and so of transfer to recipient country

• A commonly cited barrier to policy transfer

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The Evans and Davies Model

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Welfare States & Culture

• ‘Culture matters’ thesis

• ‘Macro’ perspective

– Broad conception, stable dominant beliefs

– often post hoc explanations

• ‘Micro’ perspective

– Public opinion,

– specific issues, unstable attitudes

• Culture is a nebulous concept

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‘Theories of political culture emphasize the distinctivenessof national political values, and imply that trying to drawlessons across national boundaries will fail. The success ofa programme in a given country is ascribed to itsdistinctive values and beliefs or style of policy, implyingthat any attempt to export it elsewhere would be doomedto failure because each national culture is deemed unique.A programme that would be acceptable in Swedishpolitical culture may not be acceptable in the UnitedStates, and vice versa. However, such general statementsdo not identify the specific features of a culture that areobstacles to lesson-drawing.’

(Rose, 2004: 93)

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Can We Measure Culture?

• Jo (2011) culture as stable societal values

– More concrete than macro

– More enduring than micro

– Proxy for national culture

• Cultural context of social policy making

– Interacts with politics, economics, institutions

– culture as meso-level influence

• Not a decisive influence, but a significant one

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Extracting Societal Values

• Identify stable, distinct examples of societal values

• Data from successive waves EVS/WVS data 1981-2009

– 173 societal cases; 243,975 responses

– 59 countries x max 4 time points

– Factor analysis of pooled data

– Manual inspection and reanalysis

• Built on Hofstede, Jo, Schwartz, van de Vijver et al

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Extracting Societal Values

Societal Value Example Survey Item

Relgiosity God is important in my life

Conservative Social Norms Is divorce permissible?

Permissive Values on Adherence to Laws

Justifiable to cheat on taxes?

Optimistic Values Satisfied with your life?

Traditional Family Values Is marriage an out-dated institution?

Interpersonal tolerance Would you not like heavy drinkers as your neigbours?

Political Activeness Do you participate in lawful demonstrations?

Political Orientedness Do you regularly discuss politics with friends?

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Policy Impact

• Regression analysis, medium term picture• Independent variables

– Societal values – Economic context (GDP per capita, growth,

unemployment)– Political context (cabinet composition)– Historical Institutional context (welfare regime)

• Dependent Variables:– unemployment spending– family policy spending– maternity leave policy structures

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Policy Impact

Unemp Exp(% PE)

Unemp Exp(% GDP)

Fam Pol Exp(% PE)

Fam Pol Exp(% GDP)

Maternity Leave (FTE)

CultureMatters?

✔✔ ✔✔

Any KeyValues?

- Perm Laws+ Toler

- Perm Laws+ Toler

- Religiosity+ Con Norms

+ Toler+ Perm Laws

+ Opt Val

Other Factors?

Regime (SE)Economy

Regime (SE)Economy

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Policy Impact

Unemp Exp(% PE)

Unemp Exp(% GDP)

Fam Pol Exp(% PE)

Fam Pol Exp(% GDP)

Maternity Leave (FTE)

CultureMatters?

✔✔ ✔✔ ✔ ✔ ✔✔

Any KeyValues?

- Perm Laws+ Toler

- Perm Laws+ Toler

- Religiosity+ Con Norms

- Religiosity - Religiosity+ Con Norms

+ Toler+ Perm Laws

+ Opt Val

Other Factors?

Regime (SE)Economy

Regime (SE)Economy

Regime Regime (SD) RegimeLeft Cabinet

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Policy Impact

• Good degree of support for culture matters thesis

• Some interesting findings

– Interpersonal tolerance, religiosity

• Some important limits

– Data driven, intepretation, gaps in data

• NB: only examples of societal values

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Policy Impact

• Ex ante… similar for ex post

• Both matter for Policy Transfer

• Can examination of culture help with identifying candidates for policy transfer?

• QCA methods may help trace processes?

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Policy Impact: Family Policy

Proximate Factors

Remote Factors

Two routes with combined coverage of 0.773 and consistency with LOW SPENDING of 0.901

growth

Consistency with LOW SPENDING of 0.946 and raw coverage of 0.328

left government AND growth

Consistency with LOW SPENDING of 0.957 and raw coverage of 0.670

LEFT GOVERNMENT

Consistency with HIGH SPENDING of 0.813 and raw coverage of 0.265

EXIT ROUTE

Intermediate Factors

LIBERAL

Consistency with LOW SPENDING of 0.753

Consistency with LOW SPENDING of 0.942 and raw

coverage of 0.613

TRADITIONAL FAMILY VALUES AND RELIGIOSITY

LEFT GOVERNMENT

Consistency with HIGH SPENDING of 0.901 and raw coverage of 0.315

EXIT ROUTE

TRADITIONAL FAMILY VALUES AND conservative social norms

Consistency with LOW SPENDING of 0.913 and raw

coverage of 0.503

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Conclusions

• Culture long seen as a barrier to policy transfer

• Legitimate questions about how we measure it

• In-between analysis addresses measurement?

• QCA may help trace pathways

• Captures complex, non-linear processes

• But, more work needs to be done