Policy failure mobilities

Abstract

This paper concerns the movement of negative lessons and worst practice in public policy. It focuses on a relatively new branch of scholarship – policy mobilities – which explores the global movement of policies. Within policy mobilities research there is concern about an empirical bias towards successful policies: there has been insufficient attention to whether policy failures might also be mobile. Ideas and concepts about policy failure from political science, economic geography, and science and technology studies are used to illuminate what is missing from policy mobilities scholarship, why it might be important, and to offer some ways forward.