Bulletin n. 2-3/2012
October 2012-February 2013
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Benz, Arthur
    Yardstick Competition and Policy Learning in Multi-level Systems
    in Regional and Federal Studies , volume 22 n.3 ,  2012 ,  251-268
    Social scientists widely agree that intergovernmental competition can stimulate policy learning and can motivate governments to emulate innovative and successful practices. However, this assumption has to be qualified. Rather than market forces driving governments to compete for mobile tax payers, procedures known as yardstick competition promise to achieve policy learning and transfer. In this case, governments participate in comparative evaluation of their performance and try to improve their relative position in rankings or come closer to best practices. While theoretical reasoning provides convincing reasons for this assumption, in practice different conditions have to be met to make governments learn. Yardstick competition has to be organized, but procedures and evaluations are often disputed. Governments have to be willing to participate, which cannot be taken for granted unless we know what motivates them to compete. According to theory, parliaments or voters can drive executives to meet best practices. But members of parliaments or voters are regularly guided by party competition or by media debates inside their jurisdiction and less interested in what other governments do. The article discusses conditions that can impede or promote successful yardstick competition and policy learning. Empirical evidence is based on studies of inter-regional policy competition in Germany.
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