Factoring in Societal Culture in Policy Transfer Design: the Proliferation of Private Sponsorship of Refugees

Abstract

The Canadian model of private sponsorship schemes (PSS) for refugees is becoming an increasingly popular target for policy transfer in the field of migration. This article argues that the influence of societal culture on this transplanting process has played an underexplored role in the literature. We seek to provide original guidance for factoring in cultural elements into the policy transfer framework by demonstrating how specific design choices in PSS transfer display clear cultural associations. A tentative study of nine countries that have adopted different models of PSS corroborates this hypothesis empirically. Our preliminary findings suggest that cultural compatibility may indeed increase the effectiveness of a policy transfer in some instances, while culturally preferred choices being adopted in other cases may result in suboptimal design. This converse interplay indicates that cultural awareness constitutes a crucial element of successful transfer processes and stresses the need to adopt a culturally sensitive perspective more frequently and more explicitly.

Community Sponsorship in Europe: Taking Stock, Policy Transfer and What the Future Might Hold

“…As is clear from the above, the concept of community sponsorship offers a flexible model that can be adapted to specific policy settings. As discussed below, there is no "one-size-fits-all" approach, rather policymakers should modulate the various elements of community sponsorship to local context, drawing on lessons learned from other jurisdictions (Bertram et al, 2020).…”

“…While this analysis includes a mapping of current community sponsorship models in Europe, it also includes a normative claim to maintain the focus on community sponsorship on providing refugee protection. Second, as little work currently exists mapping and analysing how jurisdictions adopt community sponsorship models (see, exceptionally, Fratzke, 2017;Bertram et al, 2020), this paper investigates how the recent emergence of community sponsorship in Europe can inform policy transfer in new jurisdictions. The paper uses the literature on transnational policy transfer to understand how to assess the uptake (or not) of community sponsorship models in new European jurisdictions.…”

Understanding the Concept of Policy Transfer: A Systematic Literature Review Approach

“…Hence, a number of researchers in recent years opted to clarify reasons why policy transfer was adopted using both voluntary and coercive measurements. In another angle, instruments (de Oliveira & Pal, 2018), policies (Bertram et al, 2019), ideas (Nugroho et al, 2015;Minkman et al, 2018), programs (Zhang & Yu, 2019, and negative lessons (Dabrowski et al, 2018b) are among the elements to elucidate the question of what is transferred. Also, in accordance with the earlier literature on policy transfer and current publications, most scholars (Bauer, 2010;Minkman et al, 2018;Dabrowski et al, 2018b) mutually agreed with four different types of policy transfer such as copying (without modification), emulation (acceptance of a program as the best practice for similar problem), hybridization (combination of elements in several settings), and inspiration (idea which stimulates fresh thinking to address policy problem in host country).…”

“…In the year 2019 per se, more researchers are discussing the use of policy transfer in modern perspective which not only concentrating on government policy but also in terms of private sector practices conducted by numerous countries in diverse fields. Among the scholarly efforts detailing the current process and actors involved in policy transfer within different political context and knowledge segments includes the work by Crossley (2019) on comparative education and sustainability; Freestone and James (2019) on urban city planning; Jones, Blaustein, and Newburn (2019) on criminology; as well as Bertram, Maleki, and Karsten (2019) on private sponsorship schemes, among others.…”

Accounting for Culture in Policy Transfer: A Blueprint for Research and Practice

“…Undoubtedly, the past two decades have seen a mushrooming of comparative policy analysis in general (Geva-May et al, 2018) and of policy transfer research in particular, following empirical trends toward increasing transnational diffusion (Minkman et al, 2018). Nevertheless, policy transfer researchers so far seem to have shied away from developing a comprehensive theoretical and methodological framework for studying the impact of culture on such processes beyond situational accounts (Bertram et al, 2020;Harring et al, 2019;Jeong et al, 2012). This contribution intends to challenge this cultural apathy by outlining a culture-sensitive approach to policy transfer analysis.…”