Fractured Global Convergence: Examining the Diffusion of Road Safety Policy, 1957-2013

• In Event: 505 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Global Standards and Local Practices

Abstract

Global convergence of public polices has been regarded as a defining feature of the late twentieth century. This study tests the generalizability of this claim for three road safety policies: i) the creation of road safety agencies; ii) child restraint laws; and iii) mandatory use of day-time running lights. I analyze cross-national longitudinal data using survival analysis for the years 1957-2013 in 147 countries. My first main finding is that only child restraint laws have been fully globally diffused and the other two face both international and national forces, depicting a fractured global convergence process. This finding may reflect the lack of necessary conditions at the regional level that accelerate the global spreading of policies, and thus contests the global convergence thesis. A second main finding is that the adoption of a road safety agency diffused in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, and the mandatory use of daytime running-lights spread throughout Europe. This may mirror the existence of specific elective affinities when policies only disseminate at the regional level. By recognizing fractured convergence processes our results call for rethinking the concept of global convergence and reintegrating more consistently regional analyses in the sociology of policy diffusion.

Author

• José Ignacio Nazif-Muñoz, McGill University