In a globalising world within which time and space has shrunk, no attempt to understand the policy process is complete without an excursion into international policy making (Deacon, 2007). International policy has two dimensions. One is about the influence of international policy processes on national policy. The other is about policies at the supranational level such as the regional or global. This chapter explores these two dimensions of international policy through the example of social policy. How do we understand the ways in which international actors impact upon national social policy and how do we understand the emergence of a supranational social policy of global social redistribution, global social regulation and global social rights? The chapter first reviews some of the conceptual and analytical frameworks drawn from the international relations, policy transfer and political economy literature. It then explicates the complexity of the international institutional framework and density of the set of international actors involved in international social policy making. The chapter concludes with an overview of this multilayered and multi-actor international policy process, and with comment about what this implies for any political strategy wishing to engage with international social policy making.

The approach taken in this chapter is to emphasise the importance of discourses about policy choices at the international level, but it does this within an actor-centred analytical framework within which discourses are one ‘weapon’ in a complex struggle of interests. This chapter is also written from a ‘value standpoint’ that favours supranational policies that secure greater global social justice. Better understanding might further this policy objective. In that sense the chapter starts from the standpoint that international social policies are real and have concrete impacts on the well-being of people. It is, however, acknowledged that at times it does appear (following Lendvai and Stubbs in Chapter Ten) that the global policy discourse taking place between transnational actors is an epiphenomenon, having little to do with the interests of anybody other than those engaged in the process.

Approaches to understanding international social policy making

To begin to understand the international social policy-making process, we must draw upon international relations and international organisation theory, policy transfer and diffusion literature, global social movement studies, and concepts of hegemonic struggle, as well as some new work around the ethnography of global policy. Within this complex intellectual framework certain conceptualisations emerge as being of particular use.