Abstract
This article discusses the adoption at the national level of public policies that were disseminated at the global level. The article shows that the concepts of epistemic community and instrument constituency are useful not only in the analysis of policy diffusion, but also to look at the inclusion of certain topics in the political agenda, the debates regarding the solution to these problems and policy design processes. We examine cash transfer programs in Brazil and Chile and compare the main ideas behind their adoption and discuss how they have informed the design of the two programs. Our results point to the existence of epistemic communities and instrument constituencies, who play a key role in the adoption of cash transfers in both countries and who act differently according to the context.
Keywords:
Ideas; Epistemic Community; Instrument Constituency; Cash Transfers; Brazil; Chile