LIST OF PANELS

Background and context

From pandemics to climate change, food security, the economy and defense, constellations of actors engage in learning to update their beliefs, understandings, and create meanings that make public policy issues amenable to public policy. It has been argued that public policies are also a way to attribute meanings to action and represent the relationship between a society and its beliefs on the world (Muller, 2009, 8th edition). It follows that the processes through which actors and societies build and change beliefs about problems and policy instruments are key to explaining change. This situates learning processes at the center of decisions about policy instruments, as well as the transformation of policy goals and governance architectures (Bennett & Howlett, 1992; Hall, 1993; Heclo, 1974). In some cases, policy learning can contribute to better policymaking and resilient societies, while in others derail policy, leading to policy failures and fiascos (Dunlop, James, & Radaelli, 2019; Zaki & Wayenberg, 2021). Thus, in adopting a comprehensive understanding of policy learning, we remain agnostic about the final impact of policy learning (being either positive, negative, or even inconsequential).

Policy learning research already offers substantial contributions on the micro-foundations of learning, collective, organizational, and social learning, modes, and mechanisms of learning (Dunlop & Radaelli, 2013; Heikkila & Gerlak, 2013; Zaki, Wayenberg, & George, 2022). We also have an important learning in theoretical frameworks of the policy process highlighted by Weible and Sabatier (2017), such as the advocacy coalitions framework, innovation and diffusion models, and the narrative policy framework.

However, in these frameworks at least, rarely does policy learning as such takes center stage in theoretical terms. At the same time, there is a flow of conceptual and empirical observations on policy learning in other theoretical regions of policy analysis. Suffice it to mention evaluation theory, decision & information theory, mechanisms-based explanations of change, implementation research, and theories of European integration. Research on polysemy in public policy seems also ripe for a policy learning turn (Cino-Pagliarello, 2022). However, efforts carried out in these regions rarely feed back into building a theoretical architecture of policy learning. Finally, there is research on policy learning as autonomous theoretical lens on policy process (Dunlop and Radaelli 2018, Heikkila and Gerlak, 2013) – in this tradition, learning is not examined as one of the elements of other theories. Instead, it takes center-stage. However, these theorizations have not progressed in the direction of addressing normative questions.

General objectives

This panel calls for contributions that conceptualize and/or empirically research policy learning across a broad range of the theoretical frameworks of the policy process presented in Weible and Sabatier (2017), but also within other important areas of theoretical and empirical policy research, such as evaluation and implementation. We also invite papers that contribute to systematizing policy learning as autonomous theoretical field, for example by building micro-foundations, exploring the political economy of learning, linking learning and institutional change, and connecting crisis and learning to resilience and socially responsive innovation.

To guide our prospective authors, we suggest the following research questions:

1. How does policy learning take place within different theoretical lenses on public policy or stages of the policy process? What role does it play? And to what ends/outcomes?

2. How does research in evaluation, implementation, polysemy, and the other regions of policy research feedback into a deeper conceptualization/understanding of learning? Where is the empirical research that shows that?

3. How is policy learning research developing into a comprehensive understanding of policy processes and policy change? How does that development address normative issues such as the quality of learning and the differential empowerment of actors in policy change?

The panel is open to a broad range of ontological and methodological approaches. We will select empirical papers and a handful of theoretical papers. We aim to collect the papers in a special issue of a world-leading journal or an edited book, hence the final discussion will be geared towards this objective of making our findings available to a large audience.

Scientific relevance

The panel’s scientific relevance is demonstrated by its ambitious conceptual goals, the explicit engagement with theory, and the fact that we address normative issues explicitly.

Supporting references

- Bennett , C. J., & Howlett, M. (1992). The lessons of learning: Reconciling theories of policy learning and policy change. Policy Sciences, 25, 275-294. doi:10.1007/bf00138786

- Cino Pagliarello, Marina.  2022.  "Unpacking Ambiguity in Ideational Change: The Polysemy of the ‘Europe of Knowledge’."  West European Politics: 45(4) 884-905

- Dunlop, C. A., & Radaelli, C. M. (2013). Systematising policy learning: From monolith to dimensions. Political Studies, 61(3), 599–619. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9248.2012.00982.x

- Dunlop, C. A., & Radaelli, C. M. (2017). Learning in the bath-tub: the micro and macro dimensions of the causal relationship between learning and policy change. Policy & Society, 36(2), 304-319. doi:10.1080/14494035.2017.1321232

- Dunlop, C., James, S., & Radaelli, C. (2019). Can’t get no learning: the Brexit fiasco through the lens of policy learning. Journal of European Public Policy, 27(5), 703-722. doi:10.1080/13501763.2019.1667415

- Hall, P. (1993). Policy paradigms, social learning and the state: The case of economic policymaking in Britian. Comparative Politics, 25, 275-96. doi:10.2307/422246

- Heclo, H. (1974). Modern social politics in Britain and Sweden: From relief to income maintenance. London: Yale University Press.

- Heikkila, T., & Gerlak, A. K. (2013). Building a conceptual approach to collective learning: Lessons for public policy scholars. Policy Studies Journal, 41(3), 484–511. doi:10.1111/psj.12026

- Muller, Pierre. 2009. Les politiques publiques, de Pierre Muller, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 2009 [8e éd.]

- Radaelli, Claudio M.  2022.  "Policy Learning and European Integration."  JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies early view https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.13432

- Zaki, B. L., & Wayenberg, E. (2021). Shopping in the Scientific Marketplace: COVID-19 through a policy learning lens. Policy Design and Practice, 4(1), 15-32. doi:10.1080/25741292.2020.1843249

- Zaki, B. L., Wayenberg, E., & George, B. (2022). A Systematic Review of Policy Learning: Tiptoeing through a Conceptual Minefield. Policy Studies Yearbook, 12(1), 1-52. doi:10.18278/psy.12.1.2

This Panel will only accept onsite presentations.

Policy learning is a fundamental social and political asset in addressing critical policy problems and crises, from pandemics to climate change, food security, the global economy and defense, among others. Constellations of actors engage in learning to update their beliefs, understandings, and create meanings that make problems amenable to public policy issues. In some cases, policy learning can contribute to better policymaking and resilient societies, while in others derail policy, leading to policy failures and fiascos (Dunlop, James, & Radaelli, 2019; Zaki & Wayenberg, 2021). Thus, in adopting a comprehensive understanding of policy learning, we remain agnostic about the final impact of policy learning (being either positive, negative, or even inconsequential).

Unsurprisingly then, research on policy learning has substantially grown since the 1990s. Current research already offers substantial contributions on the micro-foundations of learning, collective, organizational, and social learning, modes, and mechanisms of learning (Dunlop & Radaelli, 2013; Heikkila & Gerlak, 2013; Kamkhaji and Radaelli, 2017; Zaki, Wayenberg, & George, 2022).

We invite papers that explore the development of learning theorizations and applications in three directions. First, learning as dimension of the theoretical lenses on the policy process presented in Weible and Sabatier (2017). Second, the conceptualization and empirical appraisal of learning within other theoretical frameworks of public policy, such as ex-ante policy appraisal, policy and program evaluation, implementation research, diffusion & information theory. We broaden this second dimension to other theoretical/conceptual frameworks, to include for example mechanisms-based explanations of change, gender studies, linguistic and polysemy studies (Cino-Pagliarello, 2022), and European integration theory (Radaelli, 2022). Third, we welcome contributions on systematizing learning as autonomous theoretical lens on policy processes - for example by building micro-foundations, investigating the political economy of learning (adopting varieties of rational choice theory), and connecting crisis to learning processes and resilience. In all three directions, we encourage papers that seek to address the normative dimension, for example by discussing the legitimacy and accountability of learning outcomes, or its impact on diversity and inclusion.

The panel will respect criteria of diversity and will be open to a broad range of ontological and methodological approaches. We will select a majority of papers that have an empirical dimension but will also accept some conceptual contributions. As mentioned, we want this panel to host at least some papers that address normative questions.

To guide our prospective contributors, we offer the following guiding questions:

1. How does policy learning take place within different theoretical lenses on public policy or stages of the policy process? What role does it play? And to what ends/outcomes?

2. How does research in evaluation, implementation, polysemy, and the other dimensions of policy research feedback into a deeper conceptualization of learning? Where is the empirical research that shows that?

3. How is policy learning as autonomous theoretical framework developing into a comprehensive understanding of policy processes and policy change?

4. How does conceptual and empirical development embrace normative issues such as legitimacy and accountability, and the differential empowerment of actors? Who is left out in learning processes, and how does this contribute to the final social outcomes of learning?