Modeling Regional Effects on State Policy Diffusion

2001 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Z. Mooney
Keyword(s):  
State Policy ◽  
Policy Diffusion ◽  
Regional Effects

Local Rail Innovations: Antebellum States and Policy Diffusion

2011 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Callen
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
State Policy ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Policy Diffusion ◽  
State Building ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Antebellum Period ◽  
Political Conditions

Antebellum states were critical in supporting the emerging rail system of the nineteenth century, yet not all states engaged in active rail promotion efforts. In this analysis, I consider how local economic and political conditions, as well as the rail promotion activities of a state's contiguous neighbors, impacted a legislature's rail promotion decisions. The findings suggest that states only engaged in rail promotion when local infrastructure was of poor quality and a state's tax revenues were sufficient to support rail expenditures. These findings reveal that diffusion, powered by social learning, does not drive all state policy innovations. Instead, local conditions and parallel thinking are important factors in state policy development. Furthermore, the analysis underscores the power of local governments in the antebellum period, while also raising the question of whether such diffuse state building was effective.

The Ties that Bind Us: The Influence of Perceived State Similarity on Policy Diffusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 106591292090661
Author(s):  
Christine Bricker ◽  
Scott LaCombe
Keyword(s):  
State Policy ◽  
Event History Analysis ◽  
Policy Diffusion ◽  
Policy Innovation ◽  
Event History ◽  
Geographic Proximity ◽  
Data Set ◽  
National Network ◽  
Reliable Predictor ◽  
History Analysis

In this paper, we propose a new measure to understand policy connections between the states. For decades, diffusion scholars have relied on the largely untested assumption that contiguous states are more similar than noncontiguous states, despite evidence that similarity is more complex than geographic proximity. We use a unique survey of citizens’ perceptions of other states to construct a national network of similarity ties between the states. We apply this new measure with a data set of state policy adoptions in a dyadic and monadic event history analysis and find that similar state adoptions are a reliable predictor of policy innovation. We argue that perceived state similarity is a more complete measure of how states look to each other than contiguity.

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