The purpose of this important volume, whose contributors include both policy practitioners and academics, is to “elucidate the cognitive and political processes that shape the diffusion of models in contemporary Latin America” (p. 2). In his introductory chapter, Kurt Weyland lays out a series of questions to help frame an assessment of the impact of foreign models on Latin American social policy reforms during the last two decades. When do policymakers turn to external models? What turns a country's policy practices into a model for others? How is information about a particular model spread abroad? What is the impact of transmitted models on policy decision makers and how, if at all, are they adapted to local conditions? Weyland argues that the concept of “learning” is better suited to addressing these questions than either the traditional rational choice or structuralist approaches alone, since learning creates “important filters between objective reality and actors' attitudes and actions” (p. 6). Various heuristic shortcuts are taken by policymakers that significantly alter the expected cost–benefit calculation that, it is often assumed, decides the diffusion of foreign models. This framework is applied fairly consistently in a series of case study chapters that focus on three social sector reforms carried out in the region: pension systems (Argentina, Brazil), unemployment insurance (Brazil, Chile) and health care (Colombia, Mexico).

Probably no foreign model has been more discussed for its impact than Chile's privatization of its pension system. No fewer than eight countries in the region adopted some variation of this reform. Still, the lessons to be drawn from this process, as Joan Nelson warns in her chapter, are limited, since its perceived advantages have more to do with ancillary benefits, such as strengthening internal capital markets, than with developing a more effective pension system. In fact, much of the promise for pensioners of this privatization has gone unrealized. Where ancillary benefits are more limited, as in health care or education, policymakers are less likely to look abroad for a model. In the spread of reforms such as Chile's pension reform, international financial institutions (IFIs) would appear to be a key player, yet what most chapters in the volume suggest is that the role of IFIs has been exaggerated. While most authors note that IFIs played an important role in putting reforms on the policy agenda, presenting possible reform options and sharing the experiences of other countries, they largely conclude that it would be simplistic to ascribe such reforms to IFI pressure. In many of the case studies, particularly of health care in Colombia and Mexico, it is clear that pressure from organized groups and the patronage interests of political parties carried far more weight in both the domestic policy process and the ultimate outcome of reforms. While the argument that reforms are not imposed by IFIs is convincing, if somewhat obvious, this does not mean we should underestimate the power of IFIs in the diffusion of foreign models. By restricting the agenda of reforms to those that conform to a neoliberal economic model, IFIs have already exercised an enormous amount of power, and it would have been helpful if authors had evaluated the power of IFIs in limiting the discourse over reform more directly.

An important conclusion, especially for those interested in economic development, is that the models that are adopted respond more to functional advantages than to an effort to appear “modern” or to somehow play catch-up with neighbors. It is interesting to note that the volume suggests that governments are more likely to adopt models from similar or nearby countries than to merely imitate policies adopted in advanced industrial nations. The predisposition to learn from regional or similar countries, or what Weyland terms the “availability heuristic,” can be more broadly applied to a host of development issues, and it suggests that both policymakers and academics need to focus greater attention on growing regional dynamics when assessing policy reforms. As Latin American integration has accelerated dramatically in the last two decades, there has been a concomitant growth in the regional socialization of business, academic, governmental, and nongovernmental groups. The regional focus of foreign model adoption is therefore not completely surprising. Nonetheless, the experience of many successful late modernizers, particularly in East Asia, is that they have often turned to countries outside their region for foreign models, raising the question of whether Latin America's regional focus will be sufficient to accelerate modernization and solve the region's persistent poverty and equality problems.

If there is a limitation to Learning from Foreign Models in Latin American Policy Reform, it is a general lack of historical or comparative perspective. Policy diffusion is by no means a novel phenomenon, as several authors briefly mention. From Bismarck's labor reforms to the agrarian reforms of Latin America in the 1960s, the diffusion of foreign models has a notable track record. It is not clear from this volume, however, whether the learning processes behind the cases examined here can be applied to foreign-inspired reforms in the past or whether there are distinct characteristics to the current period that result from globalization, such as improved communication or financial integration, that make the learning dynamic somehow different. An apparent difference between the current foreign models adopted in the region and those of the past, such as agrarian reform, is the neoliberal underpinning to many of the current models, as well as the supporting role of IFIs in their adoption. It is unclear if the learning process would have worked similarly for models that lacked these two key factors. This is also where a comparative perspective, looking at the same dynamic in other regions of the world, could have been useful as well. Overall however, this book offers a significant contribution to the field by integrating learning into the dynamic of policy choice, and will be invaluable for both policymakers and academics interested in trying to understand the ways by which foreign models of policy reform are adopted and applied.