Policy Change and Transfer: The Case of NAEC of Georgia

Abstract

Policy change and transfer have never been unknown in public policymaking. Indeed, in the modern era, while globalization and mass communication spread around, transferring policies has become crucial for policymaking and even policy change. However, the theoretical ties between these concepts and their implications are rare and underdeveloped. The paper examines the interrelationship between changing and transferring policies, focusing on Georgia's case study of the National Assessment and Examination Center (NAEC). The academic literature on policy transfer and policy change has diverse dimensions and is well-studied in the context of education policymaking. Despite the declining role of the state, governments are still considered to be the prominent actors in the process of the policy change and transfer in the educational sector. At the same time, the influence of international agencies and organizations, foreign consultants, regional and local associations, and NGOs are growing in all sub-sectors of education (e.g., Novoa, 2002; Phillips and Ochs, 2004; Jonson, 2006; Chapman and Greenaway, 2006; Beech, 2006; Forestier and Crossley, 2015 or Rambla, 2016). According to J. Steiner-Khamsi (2006), when any education policy is questioned inside the country, authorities and decision-makers look for other policies abroad to either justify the crisis or plan new reforms. Despite the growing academic interest, critical attitudes toward education policy transfer have been reflected. One of the best illustrations is Sadler's (1990, cited in Higginson, 1979) metaphor that education reformers look like a child running outside, cutting flowers from different bushes, putting them in a planter at home, and expecting to receive a living plant. In this paper, policy transfer is defined as bounded rational action(s) when policies of global, national, or local jurisdictions are transferred to other jurisdictions on any level of government (see: Dolowitz and Marsh 2000). Based on this definition, policy transfer cannot be seen as accidental or unintentional. The given understanding allows us to differentiate policy transfer from the concepts of policy lending, borrowing, diffusion, convergence, Etc., which are sometimes more accidental and occur more rapidly or suddenly. Based on the definition, whether voluntary or not, policy transfer aims to provide (at least small-scale) changing current policy. Therefore, the research question can be formulated as follows: How do policy change and policy transfer link to each other while examining the case of NAEC? Semi-structured and expert interviews are used as the way of data collection; Data is analyzed using codes and categories, using a process tracing framework. Fifteen interviews are conducted using non-probable sampling targeted at relevant decision-makers, local experts, and foreign transfer agents. Hence, several significant findings can be made. Firstly, we divided the process carried out by NAEC into three stages: slow progress, accelerated change, and gradual transformations. During all these phases, policy transfer took place, but in different regards. Secondly, the case of NAEC is explained by PET synthesized with a policy transfer frame. The results of this work can be interesting and valuable in synthesizing theoretical approaches to policy change and policy transfer; it also highlights the importance of contextualization while studying education policy transfer. Moreover, finally, this perspective of studying policy transfer and change can be used with other scholars, focusing on either post-soviet education transformation or other non-education public spheres, to develop and criticize the proposed assumptions.