Learning from rivals: the role of science diplomats in transferring Iran's health house policy to the US

So far, the mainstream policy transfer literature has concentrated on North-North and North-South policy transfer. Few studies investigate South-North transfer. Whenever they do, they focus on policies that travelled from South America to OECD countries. Africa and the Middle East remain blind spots in the policy transfer literature. This study addresses this research gap by asking how it was possible for a group of public health experts to transfer Iran's health house policy to the Mississippi Delta, USA. Taking the follow-the-policy approach as a starting point, the study uses expert interviews and a qualitative document analysis to reconstruct how an epistemic community of US-Iranian health specialists made use of Iran's Health House Network to address a health crisis in the Mississippi Delta. Applying the science diplomat concept to the policy literature, I argue that South-North policy transfer was facilitated by science diplomats who promoted transfer despite political and financial difficulties.