Since the 2000s, school-autonomy-with-accountability (SAWA) reforms have circulated globally across diverse education systems. As a global reform package, SAWA’s transferability lies in the malleable nature of its instruments and principles, to which multiple rationales and goals can be attached. However, globalization studies often focus on cases of successful transfer of reform ideas and instruments –with their specific contextual adaptations– but overlook instances where, despite adoption efforts, transfer did not occur (Marsh and Sharman, 2009). Put differently, if conditions for transfer existed and attempts were undertaken, what circumstances led to its failure? Or what aspects were selectively borrowed and which were not? This paper explores this puzzle by examining the different degrees of SAWA adoption in Argentina and Colombia. Argentina and Colombia shared neoliberal economic recipes during the 1990s, have decentralized education governance with strong teachers’ unions, and tight links with international organizations, such as the OECD. During the 2000s, while different right-wing coalitions governed Colombia, embracing New Public Management reforms, Argentina was led primarily by left-wing Peronist governments, except for a short period (2015-2019). Two decades later, these countries have diverged on what SAWA instruments were adopted and for what purposes, resulting in quite different governance arrangements. Hence, this study follows a comparative and historical approach to understand under what circumstances, for what reasons, and to what extent the different SAWA instruments have been adopted, recontextualized, and recalibrated in Argentina and Colombia. It focuses on the adaptations, functions, and deployment of two main SAWA components: school autonomy and national scale assessments. Data for this study comes from policy documents’ analysis and interviews (n=68) with decision-makers and key informants in Argentina and Colombia. This presentation concentrates on two government administrations of intense reform activity in each country, the second term of Santos’ presidency in Colombia (2014-2018) and Mauricio Macri’s government in Argentina (2015-2019). Delving on historical institutionalism (Thelen, 1999) and policy borrowing research (Steiner-Khamsi, 2021), the paper unpacks the role of teachers’ unions and political coalitions, the constraints imposed by institutional settings –i.e., federal vs. unitarian government– and the domestic and international political and economic contexts in shaping instruments trajectories. In brief, reform efforts resulted in different policy outcomes in each country, marked by institutional rigidity and political backlash. The study points to the importance of local political and economic contexts behind global reforms and contributes to policy studies research by tracing and comparing cases of successful and failed policy transfers.

Marsh, D., & Sharman, J. C. (2009). Policy diffusion and policy transfer. Policy Studies, 30(3), 269–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/01442870902863851 Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2021). Externalisation and structural coupling: Applications in comparative policy studies in education. European Educational Research Journal, 20(6), 806–820. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904120988394 Thelen, K. (1999). Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics. Annual Review of Political Science, 2(1), 369–404. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.2.1.369