Abstract

Despite significant advances in theories of state policy innovation and diffusion, recent reviews of the subject have concluded that the field is ripe for new method-ological approaches and theoretical concepts (e.g., F. Berry and Berry 2007). In particular, scholars are focusing more on different parts of the policy process to explain patterns of diffusion and innovation—developing different models for explaining state agenda setting, for example, versus policy enactment (Karch 2007). In response, we test a revised model of the policy enactment stage of the diffusion process using a new methodological approach: qualitative comparative analysis (QCA). Combining deep qualitative knowledge of specific cases with a more for-mal approach to comparison across multiple cases (Ragin 2000), QCA appears to be just the sort of bridge between