DOLOWITZ, David P.

Learning by observing : surveying the international arena - UK : Policy Press, July 2009

To date, little of the transfer literatures have tried to discover if apparent similarities between systems emerge as a result of situation (simple) learning or topic (complex) learning. The issue that arises out of this is that while transfer must involve some level of learning, most studies tend to imply a much greater degree of learning and knowledge acquisition than they demonstrate. As such, the purpose of this article is to conceptualise how the policy transfer literatures can be linked to learning and knowledge generation by posing questions related to how, if and to what degree agents of transfer 'learn by observing' the action of other political systems.