First published as a special issue of Policy & Politics, this updated volume explores policy failures and the valuable opportunities for learning that they offer.
Policy successes and failures offer important lessons for public officials, but often they do not learn from these experiences. The studies in this volume investigate this broken link. The book defines policy learning and failure and organises the main studies in these fields along the key dimensions of processes, products and analytical levels. Drawing together a range of experts in the field, the volume sketches a research agenda linking policy scholars with policy practice.
Introduction Policy actors such as policymakers, politicians, civil servants, and advocacy coalitions continuously engage in policy learning to address policy problems. 1 This process can be understood as a deliberate, objective oriented pursuit of knowledge and information about problems and solutions within continuously evolving policy contexts ( Zaki et al, 2022 ). As a result, policy learning can lead to updating understandings of policy problems, and solutions, potentially inducing changes in policy beliefs or policy positions ( Heikkila and Gerlak
Policy learning and policy failure: definitions, dimensions and intersections1 Claire A. Dunlop, c.a.dunlop@ex.ac.uk University of Exeter, UK Policy failures present a valuable opportunity for policy learning, but public officials often fail to learn valuable lessons from these experiences. The studies in this volume investigate this broken link. This introduction defines policy learning and failure, and then organises the main studies in these fields along the key dimensions of: processes, products and analytical levels. We continue with an overview of the
licensed on the same terms. article SPECIAL ISSUE • Practical lessons from policy theories The lessons of policy learning: types, triggers, hindrances and pathologies1 Claire A Dunlop, c.a.dunlop@exeter.ac.uk University of Exeter, UK Claudio M Radaelli, c.radaelli@exeter.ac.uk University of Exeter, UK Policy learning is an attractive proposition, but who learns and for what purposes? Can we learn the wrong lesson? And why do so many attempts to learn what works often fail? In this article, we provide three lessons. First, there are four different modes in which
shared views of what is acceptable and expected by the public as beneficiaries (see Sørensen, 2016 ; Heinelt, 2022 ). Intuitively, policy learning has a family resemblance to policy innovation. It seems almost self-evident that they should be considered together in the explanation of policy dynamics. Yet the two literatures have developed independently each other 1 . Studies which put them in conversation are beginning to appear (see Borrás, 2011 ; Giest, 2017 ; 2021 and Waardenburg et al, 2020 ). Our motivation then is simple. We are interested in the
Introduction The literature on policy learning has generated a huge amount of heat (and some light) producing policy learning taxonomies, concepts and methods, yet the efforts to demonstrate why we should think about policy processes in terms of learning have been rare and mostly in the past (Dunlop, Radaelli and Trein, 2018 ). Additionally, policy learning has progressed in different sub-fields, such as the study of diffusion, transfer, individual and collective learning, social learning, and knowledge utilisation (see the family tree of learning in
problems from the outset; with costs spiralling and the timetable slipping, the policy was effectively ‘reset’ in 2013 and political pressure to abandon it mounted in the months that followed. Yet, 2013 proved to be a turning point. Looking into the precipice of the failure of a flagship reform, policy makers engaged in policy learning. Along with analysing the technical problems and capacity deficits they faced, civil servants learned from previous experiences of implementing complex policies and from similar problems in social security reform in Australia. Appointing
143 EIGHT ‘Big data’ and policy learning Patrick Dunleavy In early February 2014, during an industrial dispute with management about extending the London Tube’s hours of service, many of the system’s train drivers went on strike. Millions of passengers had to make other arrangements. Many switched their journey patterns to avoid their normal lines and stations, which were strike-hit, and to use those routes still running a service. Three economists downloaded all the data for the periods before and after the strike period from London’s pre-pay electronic
409 Policy & Politics vol 37 no 3 • 409-21 (2009) • 10.1332/030557309X435817 © The Policy Press, 2009 • ISSN 0305 5736 Key words: developmental state • flying geese hypothesis • Fukuzawa paradox • policy learning Final submission February 2009 • Acceptance February 2009 Policy learning and transfer: the experience of the developmental state in East Asia Huck-ju Kwon As late industrialisers, East Asia’s developmental states – Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan – assimilated the front runners’ policy innovations and experience, taking advantage of
335 Policy & Politics vol 37 no 3 • 335-52 (2009) • 10.1332/030557309X445672 © The Policy Press, 2009 • ISSN 0305 5736 Key words: policy learning research • welfare regime research • family policy • East Asia Final submission July 2008 • Acceptance July 2008 So near, yet so far: �onne�t�n�� �e�fare re��� e resear�h to �o���y �earn�n�� resear�h Young Jun Choi and Jin Wook Kim An increasing number of policy learning studies have provided practical suggestions for the direction of welfare developments and reforms in East Asia. However, these have been
