From development brokers to diffusion entrepreneurs: a review of concepts designating influential policy actors in global governance
Policy ideas travel through space and time thanks to people and communities who give them meaning. Public policy analysts, development anthropologists and others, have conceived a wide array of terminologies to designate those influential policy actors who actively participate in the ‘traveling’ of those policy ideas. In this chapter, we adopt the ideational perspective of policy analysis to review the public policy and social science literatures. We offer a comprehensive overview of the terminologies used and applied in the context of global policymaking. We review each concept through a critical eye, highlighting some of their strengths and limitations, particularly in the constantly evolving context of ‘multi-centric’ governance. We draw on the limitations of each reviewed concept to suggest another concept, that would incorporate the multi-centric nature of contemporary global governance - that of 'diffusion entrepreneurs'. Questions can be raised as to the opportunity and relevance of adding yet another concept to describe policy actors in global governance. We attempt to answer these questions in the second part of the chapter. We close this conceptual review by sharing reflections on the future of applying the global policy entrepreneurs/ agents/ translators/ brokers terminologies from a decolonial angle.
POLICY DIFFUSION: NEW CONSTRAINTS, NEW REALITIES. Proceedings of the II International Conference on Policy Diffusion and Development Cooperation