Policy Learning Mechanisms and the Regulation of US Drinking Water

Abstract

Can regulatory agencies become learning organizations? The purpose of this article is to assert that they can when the right learning mechanisms are in place. This article utilizes the literatures on US regulatory politics, organizational learning, and policy learning to elaborate the concept of learning mechanisms and examine the circumstances under which they are most likely to be utilized within regulatory agencies. The second half of the article examines the utilization of learning mechanisms within US drinking water regulation during the years when the drinking water policy community was working to formulate and implement the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 (1996–2015). The article concludes by summarizing the findings and offering some propositions for future research.