Brazil and China going global: emerging issues and questions to explore knowledge and policy transfers

ABSTRACT Most research in policy transfer studies focused on cases of policies originating from the ‘Global North’. However, recently countries of the ‘Global South’ became sources of models. With the exception of a few studies, literature has not considered these developments. This paper aims at contributing to this direction, by proposing an agenda drawn from policy transfer studies as well as from the observation of Brazil’s and China’s engagement in policy transfer. This exercise helps highlight a series of aspects overlooked by the literature. Understanding their motivations, their timing and other important aspects related to these processes can shed new light on policy transfer phenomena. New research questions are introduced and illustrated by examples from Brazil and China.