Learning From Comparative Public Policy

Introduction

Why learn lessons from abroad?

It is always right for one who dwells in a well-ordered state to go forth on a voyage of enquiry by land and sea so as to confirm thereby such of his native laws as are rightly enacted and to amend any that are deficient.

Plato, Laws

The goal of this book is ambitious: it is to help readers deal with problems of public policy by drawing lessons from the experience of other governments. The object of looking abroad is not to copy but to learn under what circumstances and to what extent programmes effective elsewhere may also work here. Moreover, the failures of other governments offer lessons about what not to do at far less political cost than making the same mistakes yourself.

There is nothing novel ...