Policy-oriented Learning Research Articles

Reflections on policy-oriented learning in transnational visioning processes: The case of the Atlantic Spatial Development Perspective (ASDP)

Reflections on policy-oriented learning in transnational visioning processes: The case of the Atlantic Spatial Development Perspective (ASDP)

Policy Transfer and the Internationalisation of Social Policy

This article analyses the theoretical utility of policy transfer in developing perspectives on international and comparative social policy. It argues that existing work on policy transfer provides us with a theoretical tool to connect perspectives on international policy change, by focussing on the knowledge base of policy and the motivations of actors throughout the policy process from the global level to the context of practice. In doing so, it explores the role of epistemic communities in policy-oriented learning, particularly in education. The article concludes by suggesting four areas for future work on transfer which would serve to advance international policy analysis.

Learning for Sustainability Transition through Bounded Socio-technical Experiments in Personal Mobility

A bounded socio-technical experiment (BSTE) attempts to introduce a new technology, service, or a social arrangement on a small scale. Many such experiments in personal mobility are ongoing worldwide. They are carried out by coalitions of diverse actors, and are driven by long term and large scale visions of advancing society’s sustainability agenda. This paper focuses on the processes of higher-order learning that occur through BSTEs. Based on the conceptual frameworks from theories of organizational learning, policy-oriented learning, and diffusion of innovation, we identify two types of learning: the first type occurs among the participants in the experiment and their immediate professional networks; the second type occurs in the society at large. Both types play a key role in the societal transition towards sustainable mobility systems. Two case studies, in which the Design for Sustainability Group at Technical University of Delft has participated, provide empirical data for the analysis. One case consists of development of a three-wheeled bike-plus vehicle (Mitka); the second case seeks to solve mobility problems on the Dutch island of Texel. We find that higher order learning of the first type occurs among the BSTE participants and beyond. Learning can be facilitated by deployment of structured visioning exercises, by diffusion of ideas among related BSTEs, by innovative couplings of problems and solutions, and by creating links among related experiments. Government agencies, universities and other intellectual entrepreneurs have key roles to play in making that happen. The cases provide much less insights about the second type of learning. Research on the latter is necessary.

Reshaping the Dutch Planning System: A Learning Process?

The Dutch physical planning system is at a turning point. Recently the government proposed a new institutional framework for spatial planning. At first sight, the intended changes look like an example of improvements resulting from a learning process. However, the main lines of the proposal blatantly deviate from the insights into planning, balanced decisionmaking, and ‘governance’ that have emerged during the past decade. This is illustrated and explained from three perspectives. First, the growing need for change was put forward several times by the Scientific Council for Government Policy, a think tank whose task is to advise the government from a certain intellectual distance. The development of ideas by this agency is an example of cognitive learning. Second, the example of infrastructure planning that is crucial in this cognitive development is used to illustrate this by confronting the ideas with the experiences in two major national projects. As a third line, the deviations between the empirical evidence, the analysis, and the advice to the government on the one hand, and the governmental proposal on the other, are explained in relation to the ‘advocacy coalition framework’ theory on policy-oriented learning.

Understanding policy change with the advocacy coalition framework: an application to Swiss drug policy

Over the last two decades, Swiss drug policy has moved away from a prohibitionist to a 'harm reduction' model. This article uses the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) to understand this process of policy change, drawing on social movement theory to overcome shortcomings of the ACF regarding collective action. We argue that recent history in the field of drug policy in Switzerland can plausibly be presented as a competition between coalitions advocating belief systems regarding problems and policy. The Aids epidemic is considered a crucial noncognitive event helping the harm reduction coalition to overthrow the hegemonic abstinence coalition. Public order issues linked to harm reduction facilities led neighbourhood quality of life advocates to impede the location of such facilities, which, in turn, stimulated policy-oriented learning with harm reduction advocates. The analysis supports the ACF's hypotheses on policy change, but social movement theory provides insights into coalition formation, persistence and strategies.

Policy Networks and Advocacy Coalitions: Explaining Policy Change and Stability in UK Industrial Pollution Policy?

Policy network analysis (PNA) and the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) are relatively recent additions to the toolbox of policy analysis. The author explores the strengths and limitations of each through comparative application. The two frameworks are used to analyse policy change and stability in the UK industrial pollution sector over a period of more than twenty-five years. Innovations derived from policy-oriented learning generated in the 1970s were initially rejected before being implemented fourteen years later. The case study illustrates the limits of both theories. Change was not an open competition between advocates of different core policy beliefs. Nevertheless the ACF analysis of contrasting, broadly defined, beliefs can help explain some events beyond policy networks. Resource interdependencies in the policy network provide a good explanation for the stabilities exhibited in the case study. PNA can also explain why some actors were excluded from the policy process whereas others exercised decisionmaking and nondecisionmaking power. In combination, the more fundamental agency-oriented and structure-oriented emphases on beliefs and resources associated with the ACF and PNA, respectively, can enrich policy analysis.

External Shocks, Conflict and Learning as Interactive Sources of Change in U.S. Security Policy

Scholars studying the processes that lead to significant alterations in public policies have identified two major sources of change: policy-oriented conflict and policy-oriented learning. Many investigations of specific cases of consequential policy change also suggest that “shocks” from outside the policy subsystem, (that is, the specific political arena where a policy issue is formulated and implemented) are often necessary for significant policy change to occur. Rather than being competing explanations of policy change, this paper argues that external shocks, conflict, and learning often interact to generate windows of opportunity which enable policies to be significantly altered. These perspectives on policy change are then qualitatively applied to recent changes in U.S. national security policy which have allowed formerly secret spy satellite technology to be used in commercial data gathering systems. The final part discusses the implications of this research for the theory of policy change and for U.S. national security policy.

Learning and Change in the British Columbia Forest Policy Sector: A Consideration of Sabatier's Advocacy Coalition Framework

AbstractThis article uses British Columbia forest policy to test our ability to distinguish between policy change and policy learning using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) developed by Paul Sabatier. The authors find the ACF a useful way of approaching policy change in this sector, but argue that finer discriminations are needed to detect policy learning. They argue that Sabatier underestimates the extent to which the legitimation function of key ideas forces dominant advocacy coalitions to respond to criticisms in ways that promote learning. They conclude that, in this case, adaptive strategies undertaken by a dominant advocacy coalition in response to criticism has resulted in policy-oriented learning that may cause a major policy shift without an externally induced crisis in the forest policy sector.

Policy Evaluation and Learning

But what experience and history teach us is this, that nations and governments have never learned anything from history. (G. W. F. Hegel, 1837, cited in Feyerabend 1978) Contemporary literature on policy evaluation challenges the 'traditional', rational-objectivist model of policy evaluation. Instead, an argumentative- subjectivist approach is forwarded, conceiving of policy-making as an ongoing dialogue, in which both governmental and societal actors contest their views on policy issues by exchanging arguments. It is argued that, through constructive argumentation, policy actors, networks or advocacy coalitions may arrive at moral judgements on policy issues and, hopefully, at 'better' policies and ways of delivering those policies. The paradigm shift from the rational-objectivist model to the argumentative-subjectivist approach has implications for the way policy evaluation is studied as a means of institutionalized policy-oriented learning; the searching process of improving and perfecting public policy and its underlying normative assumptions through the detection and correction of perceived imperfections. Policy- oriented learning can be studied from a cybernetic control, a cognitive development and a social-constructivist perspective. Within policy-oriented argumentation and negotiation—the discursive processes that constitute the roots of policy-oriented learning—there may (still) be a need for methodologically sound assessments of the cost-effectiveness or 'quality' of policy measures. Accepting this premise, we advance an integrated learning strategy, in which the 'traditional', rational-objectivist role of evaluating institutions may well serve to complement more argumentative-oriented perspectives.

Involving stakeholders in health services research: developing Alberta's resident classification system for long-term care facilities.

Little attention has been directed in Canada to identifying stakeholders at the administrative policy level to whom relevant health services research information can be targeted. This article describes a case study in which key stakeholders (long-term care facility owners, operators, and care providers) were explicitly defined not only as targets of original research information to inform administrative public policy but also as collaborators in the research process and dissemination of results. The research involved development of a classification system to measure resident care requirements in the province's nursing homes and auxiliary hospitals. The classification system formed the basis of a new government administrative policy for allocating public funds to these facilities based on levels of care. The authors describe the rationale for involving stakeholders in the research process, the role of stakeholders as collaborators, and lessons learned from the Alberta experience. Examples are presented of how stakeholders can contribute to the health services research process and outcome: by providing experiential knowledge related to the research outcome, anticipating and overcoming potential problems with policy implementation, facilitating policy-oriented learning across stakeholder groups, assisting in the transfer of research information to wider stakeholder audiences, and promoting acceptance for policy change.

Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach

* The Study of Public Policy Processes Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier. The Advocacy Coalition Framework * Policy Change over a Decade or More P. A. Sabatier. * The Dynamics of Policy-Oriented Learning H. C. Jenkins-Smith and P. A. Sabatier. Qualitative Case Studies Of Policy Change And Learning * An Advocacy Coalition Approach to Change in Canadian Education Hanne B. Mawhinney. * Competing Advocacy Coalitions, Policy Evolution, and Airline Deregulation Anthony E. Brown and Joseph Stewart Jr. * California Water Politics: Explaining Policy Change in a Cognitively Polarized Subsystem John F. Munro. * Managing Technological Change in Federal Communications Policy: The Role of Industry Advisory Groups Richard P. Barke. Quantitative Analyses Of Policy Change * The Politics of Offshore Energy: Empirically Testing the Advocacy Coalition Framework H. C. Jenkins-Smith and Gilbert K. St. Clair. * From Vague Consensus to Clearly Differentiated Coalitions: Environmental Policy at Lake Tahoe, 19641985 P. A. Sabatier and Anne M. Brasher. Conclusion * The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Assessment, Revisions, and Implications for Scholars and Practitioners P. A. Sabatier and H. C. Jenkins-Smith. Methodological Appendix * Measuring Longitudinal Change in Elite Beliefs Using Content Analysis of Public Documents H. C. Jenkins-Smith and P. A. Sabatier. *

The lessons of learning: Reconciling theories of policy learning and policy change

Several different explanations of policy change based on notions of learning have emerged in the policy literature to challenge conventional conflict-oriented theories. These include notions of ‘political-learning’ developed by Heclo, ‘policy-oriented learning’ developed by Sabatier, ‘lesson-drawing’ analyzed by Rose, ‘social learning’ discussed by Hall and ‘government learning’ identified by Etheredge. These different concepts identify different actors and different effects with each different type of learning. Some elements of these theories are compatible, while others are not. This article examines each approach in terms of who learns, what they learn, and the effects of learning on subsequent policies. The conclusion is that three distinct types of learning have often been incorrectly juxtaposed. Certain conceptual, theoretical and methodological difficulties attend any attempt to attribute policy change to policy learning, but this does not detract from the important reorientation of policy analysis that this approach represents.

Is there policy-oriented learning in the analysis of natural gas policy issues?

The debate on natural gas pricing policy has been one of the longest and most active in the United States in this century. Conflicts in the fundamental belief systems of the advocacy coalitions involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of natural gas have dominated the debate, and the financial stakes to each have been high. These circumstances and the physical nature of the gas supply, distribution, and consumption system have motivated a very large number of analytic studies of the policy options, particularly since 1973. In this paper the extent of policy-oriented learning that has taken place in the development of natural gas pricing policy, and the role of formal analysis in that learning process are assessed. These objectives are greatly facilitated by reliance on a recently proposed framework for analyzing the factors affecting policy change.

An advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policy-oriented learning therein

There has been a great deal of research in recent years concerning the use of substantive policy analysis in public policy-making. This paper seeks to integrate those findings - e.g., the ‘enlightenment function’ of policy research - into a more general model of policy-making over periods of a decade or more. The conceptual framework focuses on the belief systems of advocacy coalitions within policy subsystems as the critical vehicle for understanding the role of policy analysis in policy-oriented learning and the effect, in turn, of such learning on changes in governmental programs.

Knowledge, Policy-Oriented Learning, and Policy Change

There has been a great deal of research in recent years concerning the use of substantive policy analysis in public policymaking. This article seeks to integrate those findings—e.g., the “enlightenment function” of policy research—into a more general model of policymaking over periods of a decade or more. The conceptual framework focuses on the belief systems of advocacy coalitions within policy subsystems as the critical vehicle for understanding the role of policy analysis in policy-oriented learning and the effect, in turn, of such learning on changes in governmental programs.