The state-local nexus in policy innovation diffusion: The case of school choice

Our knowledge of how policy innovations diffuse in federal systems could be enhanced by paging greater attention to the behavior of policy entrepreneurs. This study shows how policy entrepreneurs have helped stimulate the diffusion of stale school-choice plans by collecting and generating evidence of the workability of this innovation. Importantly, these policy entrepreneurs have often used evidence from local experiments to promote state policy change. Thus, a state-focal nexus exists in the diffusion of school choice. This analysis suggests that there is value in conceptualizing policy innovation diffusion in a federal system as both a horizontal (that is, state to state) and a vertical (that is, state and local) phenomenon.