Policy brief on our recent book

It is too bad that almost two weeks have passed since the last post!  I still want to write something on policy ideas and policy entrepreneurship (concepts that we still have seriously underdeveloped), but have not had the time.  Before that, just to announce a new policy brief, Juliana Martínez Franzoni and I just published for UNRISD.  You can find it here.  Based on our recent book on Costa Rica, it highlights the role of elites and ideas in shaping policy over the long run.  The concept needs further development and empirical backing, but I think it is a good reminder that the composition of the elite and its preferences can vary a lot among countries.  Institutionalist approaches tend to focus too much on commonalities and on institutional incentives and not enough on ideas and structural differences.