How attractiveness leads to leads to success
| Robert H. Cox |
Why do some ideas succeed, and even acquire paradigmatic status? In the current issue of Governance, Robert H. Cox and Daniel Beland argue that a key consideration is the attractiveness of an idea — a quality they call its valence. Multiple factors heighten valence, including the newness of a concept and its level of abstraction. Cox and Beland show how valence has influenced the spread of the concept of sustainability. “By examining the transformation of sustainability from a limited policy domain to paradigmatic status in several policy areas,” they argue, “we can identify the factors that have made the idea attractive.” Read the article.
