Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions V. 2

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2 Governance: An Int'l J. Pol'y, Admin, & Institutions 1 (1989)

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Introduction:
Policy Communities as a Global Phenomena

JACK L. WALKER

No nation anywhere in the world can escape the rapidly increasing
pace of social and economic change, brought on by the introduction of
exotic new technologies and the world-wide communications and
transportation revolutions. The instantaneous transmission of informa-
tion via satellite, and the ease with which goods, services, and people
can be transferred around the globe has led to the creation of a vibrant,
steadily expanding, international marketplace. Multi-national firms,
which once emerged only from the dominant economies of Europe and
the United States, now find their origins in Japan, Korea, Brazil, and
the Middle East. Leaders of countries with subsistence'economies, still
struggling with the problems of mass illiteracy, are being confronted
with complex problems of public policy that require the assistance of
large numbers of technicians and policy specialists.
The new international economic system penetrates all corners of the
globe, requiring responses from all countries. Although some countries
such as Burma or Vietnam have made profound and costly efforts to
resist being swept up in the burgeoning new system, increasingly the
more common desire is to share in the fruits of the international
economy. Political leaders in Western democracies, and as we find in
this collection, also in Communist countries like Yugoslavia and China,
are searching for a stable niche in the new system that will enhance
their economic and cultural strengths. Older ideologies and indigenous
cultural practices are no longer adequate guides to action in this arena
of change, and many older industrial systems are buckling under
pressure from world markets. As countries strive to adapt, they
discover that they must increase their efforts at social learning, and
must reevaluate everything from their educational systems, to their
capital markets and sometimes question their fundamental ideological
commitments.
In periods of profound uncertainty, like today, when political leaders
are losing faith in standard solutions to policy problems, policy
specialists have exceptional access to the political process - the
relationship between knowledge and power is fundamentally altered.

Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration, Vol. 2, No. 1, January 1989
(pp. 1-4), © 1989, Research Committee on the Structure and Organization of
Government of the International Political Science Association. ISSN 0952-1895