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Copyright of Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article focuses on the discussion of global policy convergence through the implementation of "distributed governance" within the education policy sector. Here, the focus is directed at the emergence of national education standards (NES) as a simultaneous instrument of fair school control and performance increase. Both the US and Germany show a high traditional resistance to nationally centralised educational control, but experienced a massive transformation in this direction by the recent implementation of a national core curriculum initiative (National Education Standards in Germany and Common Core State Standards in the US). This article will rely on global governance and distributed governance research, focusing on the concept of "heterarchies", to analyse the interplay of global and national contexts in the case of the rise of NES in the US and Germany, ultimately showing the concepts' contributions (and limits) to explain policy convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]