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Episodes of Translation and Network Resilience: Lessons from Israel's Attempted Institutionalisation of Workfare

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2018

SARA HELMAN  and
ASA MARON
SARA HELMAN
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, POB 653, Beersheba 84105, Israel. email: [email protected]
ASA MARON
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Haifa, Haifa 3498838, Israel. email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The translation perspective explores the travel of policy ideas, programmes and practices across international boundaries, focusing on the process through which interpretative agents introduce and adjust borrowed policy items to a new policy context. Current research emphasises the significance of local networks’ support for translation's efficacy. However, we know little about how such networks are maintained and stabilized over time or how changing configurations and capacities may affect translation's prospects. This paper explores the case of Israel's attempted institutionalisation of workfare – an enduring international policy fashion – from 1998 to the present day. We follow the stabilization and destabilization of the local translation network across different levels and sites of policy design and implementation, analysing emerging conflicts and agreements at each site. We use the metaphor ‘episodes of translation’ to explore translation's value as a concept accounting for local policy change. In order for translation-led policy change to maintain legitimacy and actualisation in contested domains, ongoing engagement of existing and emerging policy actors is essential. This case demonstrates how when networks become destabilized, translation-led policy change may come to a halt.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 63 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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