Policy Diffusion Networks and Contemporary Model Legislation

• In Event: Interest Groups and Public Policy

Abstract

In recent years, political scientists have had to revise and complicate extant models of interstate policy diffusion in light of the proliferation of model legislation—bills drafted by non- or para-governmental actors and distributed across multiple states for simultaneous enactment. This paper aims to add to the literature by disaggregating model legislation from other sorts of policy diffusion mechanisms.
I begin with a historical account of policy diffusion in the Progressive and New Deal eras, when left-liberal advocacy groups constructed interstate networks in order to pass uniform regulatory laws such as labor and consumer protections. I argue that Progressive and New Deal era policy diffusion networks sought to convince state legislators to emulate the policies of other states; that is, attempt to construct policies to achieve similar ends but nonetheless take into account the unique character of each state. I then turn to policy diffusion in the 1980s and 1990s, which I characterize as copying rather than emulation. Instead of drafting original policy aimed at similar ends to the policy of other states, and due to the development of polarization, legislators in this era pursued a strategy of passing policies identical to those of other states. Lastly, I turn to the proliferation of model legislation in contemporary American politics, arguing that the polarized politics of the 1980s and 1990s led to the development of large interstate policy diffusion networks that seek to homogenize state policy via federated means, especially in terms of issues related to “the culture war.”

Author

• Casey Richard Puerzer, Boston College