Although comparative state policy frameworks consider the role of societal norms, few account for cognitive and normative imperatives that originate outside a state's boundaries and are specific to promoting or impeding the adoption of particular policies. One approach that does so is the new...

The adoption of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2003 added yet another iteration to the action-reaction or interactive style of federalism that has characterized this complex policy area for three decades. Though the federal government benefited from state-level policy learning, it...