Policy Diffusion: Theory, Concept, Practice

The article discusses the relevant problem of the spread of political innovation in world practice. The main research method is the analysis of publications on the problems of policy diffusion, widely represented in the world and only slightly in Russia. The work aims to review publications on the problems of policy diffusion, analyze theoretical and methodological approaches to its study, assess the current state of research on policy diffusion, determine its promising directions and special factors of the Russian case. The analysis of publications on policy diffusion shows that the focus of the general discussion is on issues of a paradigmatic nature: definition of the concept, research methods, development of theories of policy diffusion, and application of theoretical approaches to the analysis of existing practices. The most elaborated and coordinated in scientific discourse is the concept of policy diffusion, and the most significant problem that needs to be studied is the operationalization of the concept, taking into account the mechanisms of policy dissemination and related implementation practices. The directions of further research are the search for valid and reliable methods of measuring policy diffusion; the conceptualization of its practices; the study of its communicative mechanisms, such as “diffuse networks”; the study of non-institutionalized forms of policy reception. The generalization of the review allowed determining the special conditions for the demand for policy diffusion research in Russia: the maturity of the object of study, i.e., the independence of policy subjects in the choice of development strategies, which is possible only in the context of the further democratization in political governance; and the spread of policy diffusion practices as a result of decentralization in political decision-making. The authorities in Russia always strive to control even the free democratic processes of communication; therefore, mandatory mechanisms of policy diffusion will be of particular importance. As a scientific problem, this can be expressed through the search for the justification of ways to manage political freedoms; these ways assume that public administration goes to a more complex level of interaction with society.

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