The 2020 US Presidential Election and the Transatlantic Relationship Under Stress

President Trump has created turmoil in the transatlantic relationship. Biden has taken a conciliatory tone towards allies and promised to return the US to multilateral cooperation as president. But the transatlantic relationship will never return to its heyday. Three long-term trends will shape the future of US foreign policy and the transatlantic relationship: the global shift in the distribution of power, and especially what the US-China rivalry means for Europe; the US’ ambivalence towards multilateralism and why it will likely endure; and changing domestic coalitions within the US that might be a harbinger of a foreign policy revolution.

NEW FRONTIERS AND DIRECTIONS IN POLICY TRANSFER, DIFFUSION AND CIRCULATION RESEARCH: AGENTS, SPACES, RESISTANCE, AND TRANSLATIONS

Policy transfer, diffusion and circulation studies are a fertile ground for innovation in public policy analysis. In a globalized world, where state boundaries are permeable and public policy travels transnationally, the diffusion of policies is what naturally connects domestic to international policy. Te recent surge of publications in the feld consolidated an important and dense body of knowledge. However, afer years of research, there now seems stasis if not stagnation, with relatively little conceptual innovation. In this article we propose to address fresh avenues for future research, considering what needs to be better understood in the policy diffusion phenomenon. Te new frontiers to be explored are not only associated to heuristic dimensions of the feld, but also to empirical dynamics that emerged in the past years. We highlight six new frontiers for policy transfer and diffusion research: (1) the role of the private sector and consultants; (2) internationalization of domestic coalitions; (3) transnational spaces and transfer agents; (4) policy translation; (5) resistance to transfer; and (6) South-South or South-North transfers.

Domestic Coalitions: International Sources and Effects

The centrality of domestic coalitions serves as transmission belts between the domestic and international realms. Despite its long lineage in international and comparative political economy and its relevance to the understanding of contemporary responses to globalization, coalitional analysis has been typically neglected when explaining outcomes in international relations. The analytical framework adopted here builds on two “ideal-typical” coalitions—an “inward-nationalist” and an “outward-internationalist” model—each advancing competing models across industrialized and industrializing contexts alike. Several applications illustrate the breadth and scope of this framework, spacious enough to explain economic responses in Europe from the repeal of the Corn Laws to the 20th century; the security implications of economic responses leading to World War I; the impact of internationalization on regional orders in the industrializing world since 1945; the relationship between coalitional approaches to the global economy and nuclear weapons proliferation since 1970; and the relevance of coalitional divides to outcomes regarding Brexit, Donald Trump’s election, and beyond. Coalitional analysis thus (a) offers important insights on wide-ranging empirical phenomena in comparative and international politics that institutional approaches alone fail to explain; (b) provides a unifying framework addressing trans-historical responses to globalization, nationalism, ethno-confessionalism, and their effects on interstate relations; (c) attends to political cleavages in political economy that intersect with security; (d) transcends dated level-of-analysis categories by linking subnational and global processes; (e) is flexible enough to accommodate wide variation in state–society relations and political institutionalization; (f) grounds politics in a dynamic framework able to explain both continuity and change; and (g) clarifies contradictory findings regarding interdependence and war by providing a mechanism explaining why, when, and how economic exchange with the world may or may not inhibit war.

“Wisconsin Works” in Israel? Imported Ideas, Domestic Coalitions, and the Institutional Politics of Recommodification

The spread of workfare to Israel and elsewhere in the world is typically attributed to the power of a globalized neoliberal orthodoxy. This chapter demonstrates how, on the contrary, the introduction of new employment and social policies in Israel bearing the Wisconsin moniker was an attempt to resolve intra-state conflict regarding the goals and instruments of state intervention in the labor market. These conflicts were resolved through by importing new policy ideas. Via translation, it was possible to assemble a change coalition and advance domestic institutional change. Nevertheless, due to the persistence of intra-state conflicts over the goals and instruments of social and labor policies, workfare was implemented alongside existing institutions to create a new institutional layer. Layering was instrumental in overcoming opposition to the program, but also made it vulnerable to politicization. This politicization brought about the interruption of the program five years after its inception.