Learning from Foreign Models in Latin American Policy Reform

Abstract

Learning from Foreign Models in Latin American Policy Reform. Edited by Kurt Weyland. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 320p. $60.00 cloth, $22.95 paper. The purpose of this important volume, whose contributors include both policy practitioners and academics, is to “elucidate the cognitive and political processes that shape the diffusion of models in contemporary Latin America” (p. 2). In his introductory chapter, Kurt Weyland lays out a series of questions to help frame an assessment of the impact of foreign models on Latin American social policy reforms during the last two decades. When do policymakers turn to external models? What turns a country's policy practices into a model for others? How is information about a particular model spread abroad? What is the impact of transmitted models on policy decision makers and how, if at all, are they adapted to local conditions? Weyland argues that the concept of “learning” is better suited to addressing these questions than either the traditional rational choice or structuralist approaches alone, since learning creates “important filters between objective reality and actors' attitudes and actions” (p. 6). Various heuristic shortcuts are taken by policymakers that significantly alter the expected cost–benefit calculation that, it is often assumed, decides the diffusion of foreign models. This framework is applied fairly consistently in a series of case study chapters that focus on three social sector reforms carried out in the region: pension systems (Argentina, Brazil), unemployment insurance (Brazil, Chile) and health care (Colombia, Mexico).

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