Following the Example of Other Countries? Policy Analysis of New Legislation in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Since previous research has shown that nation-states take the acts of other states in consideration when making decisions about their policies, this article focuses on analyzing national decision-making in actual practice by studying the justifications used in debating new legislation. The data comprises second readings of bills from Canada and the UK and House debates of US bills from 2001 to 2011. The total amount of bills analyzed is 208. The results show that the acts of governments and other agents in the global system are an essential part of the factors to which actors refer in their argumentation. The analysis also shows that the US political culture is less receptive to considering cross-national differences or policies adopted in other states as justification for domestic reforms than the other two countries, whereas Canadians are most sensitive to the international community and their position and reputation among the nations. From these differences in national political cultures we cannot deduce, however, that the United States is immune to external factors or the center of a unilateral system. Although decisions are less often justified by policies adopted in other countries, the global community and economic competition are an essential part of the environment to which US politicians place themselves as decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]