Mapping Transnational Policy Interactions: Evidence From Open Government Policy Documents

Abstract

In today's interconnected world, policymaking increasingly involves cross-border engagement, as governments draw on external policy models, organizations, and comparative experience. Earlier research has identified important mechanisms of cross-border policy circulation, but it has been less well suited to capturing more networked, iterative, and discursive forms of engagement. This study argues that such processes are better understood as interaction rather than transaction, through which “epistemic engagement” occurs as policymakers acknowledge and assess external ideas. We therefore treat references to external policy actors as discursive indicators of such engagement. We examine this question in the context of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a useful setting as it combines peer-learning and co-creation with uneven geopolitical influence. Using a mixed-method design that integrates large language models, network analysis, and qualitative thematic analysis, we analyze four types of open government policy documents from 75 OGP member countries. The findings reveal a complex landscape of contemporary policy interactions, marked by multidirectional flows, expanded actor participation, and context-sensitive engagement that extends beyond conventional transactional models. Methodologically, the study shows how computation text analysis can trace cross-national policy engagement at scale while remaining attentive to the interpretive limits of document-based evidence.