Ideology and Learning in Policy Diffusion

Scholarly research on the diffusion of policies across state governments focuses predominantly on the pathways of information between the states. Absent from this research is a thorough discussion of the content of the information state governments use when deciding whether or not to adopt an innovative policy. Given the importance of information in decision making, we develop a model that focuses attention on one type of information, namely, the ideological position of previous adopters. Although not the only piece of relevant information, we believe that states look to the previous adopters in an effort to minimize the uncertainty about how issues fit in the liberalconservative policy space. We test this theory in three different policy areas, finding consistent evidence that ideological cues help states learn about policy innovations while replicating important findings from previous research.

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