Learning in Political Analysis
| Author | Philipp Trein,Thenia Vagionaki |
| Published date | 01 May 2020 |
| Date | 01 May 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1478929919834863 |
| Subject Matter | State of the Art |
834863PSW0010.1177/1478929919834863Political Studies ReviewVagionaki and Trein
research-article2019
State of the Art
Political Studies Review
2020, Vol. 18(2) 304 –319
Learning in Political Analysis
© The Author(s) 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929919834863
DOI: 10.1177/1478929919834863
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Thenia Vagionaki and Philipp Trein
Abstract
This article reviews how scholars use learning as an analytical concept across the political science
and public policy literature. Three questions guide our discussion: (1) What do political actors in
policy learn about (e.g. ideas or policy instruments)? (2) Who learns from whom and for what
reason? And finally, (3) How does learning happen against the background of organizational and
political realities? Our perspective offers an original contribution by synthesizing key concepts and
empirical challenges of the learning research.
Keywords
policy learning, political learning, social learning, diffusion, transfer
Accepted: 4 December 2018
Introduction1
This article reviews the way researchers in political science and public policy refer to
learning. It contributes to the literature in accounting for the increase in scholarship that
deals with learning, in recent years. This article also summarizes the main literature
strands on learning and connects their main themes to move forward the research agenda.
Learning has been a classical issue on the agenda of political analysts for a long time.
For example, Karl Deutsch (1966), Herbert Simon (1947, 1957), as well as Hugh Heclo
(1974), and Charles Lindblom (1959) made important contributions to the literature early
on. During the last 25 years or so, the field of learning has broadened considerably.
Researchers discussed learning in relation to ideas (Béland and Cox, 2011; Hall, 1993:
278), learning types (Bennett and Howlett, 1992; May, 1992), policy diffusion (Braun and
Gilardi, 2006), policy transfer and lesson-drawing (Dolowitz and Marsh, 1996; Rose,
1991), as well as political learning (Pierson, 1994; Radaelli and Dunlop, 2013). On a dif-
ferent level, the interest in learning continues to be strong in political science literature,
even more since mutual learning has become a cornerstone of European governance, with
the introduction of the open method of coordination (OMC) (Dunlop and Radaelli, 2012:
600). More recent contributions have worked toward the development of learning into a
theory of policymaking (Dunlop et al., 2018a; Dunlop and Radaelli, 2018). Therein, the
Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Historiques et Internationales, Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Corresponding author:
Philipp Trein, Institut d’Etudes Politiques et Internationales, Universite de Lausanne, Géopolis 4346, 1015
Lausanne, Switzerland.
Email: josefphilipp.trein@unil.ch
Vagionaki and Trein
305
authors suggest that the policy process should be understood through four different modes
of learning—instrumental, reflexive, bargaining, and hierarchical learning (Dunlop and
Radaelli, 2018).
The variety of literature strands and research problems to which scholars have applied
learning, in political analysis, demonstrates that learning is very important for problem-
solving and progress in both politics and policy. Nevertheless, because learning is subject
to different strands of literature, it is often hard for readers to clearly see the overall pic-
ture and distinguish among such a diversity of theories and interpretations of policy learn-
ing. Therefore, this article provides an overview of the different strands of literature,
connects them, and identifies challenges and areas for future research.
To gain a better picture of the field, our literature review divides the learning literature
into three perspectives. First, we focus on how researchers have analyzed the contents of
learning, for example, broad ideas and specific policy instruments. Second, we assess
how scholars have examined who learns from whom by including the policy diffusion
and policy transfer literatures. Third, we discuss how political and organizational inter-
ests and structures frame learning. This organization of the material is inspired by other
articles from the learning literature (Bennett and Howlett, 1992; Heikkila and Gerlak,
2013). However, our article goes a step further by including more recent contributions,
and by taking a wider perspective which includes more explicitly the policy diffusion and
transfer literature.
The presentation of the learning literature according to these three perspectives allows
us to discuss the following questions about the learning literature that help to stimulate
further work on learning in political research: (1) How can we move beyond more con-
ceptual distinctions (such as different types and modes of learning) to advance the under-
lying mechanisms of learning? (2) What are the challenges that researchers face to
advance empirical research on learning and to distinguish it from mimicking and imita-
tion? (3) How can we improve prospects for learning among governmental institutions
and by policymakers? (4) (How) Does policy learning need to be changed conceptually
when considering networked and multi-level governance (MLG)? And finally, (5) Do
different types of policy problems come along with different capacities for learning?
To define learning in politics and public policy is difficult. A common definition refers
to learning as the “as the acquisition of new relevant information that permits the updating
of beliefs about the effects of a new policy” (Braun and Gilardi, 2006: 308). Others have
proposed a more encompassing definition that focuses on the learning process and entails,
“1) a collective process, which may include acquiring information through diverse actions
(e.g. trial and error), assessing or translating information, and disseminating knowledge or
opportunities across individuals in a collective, and 2) collective products that emerge
from the process, such as new shared ideas, strategies, rules, or policies” (Heikkila and
Gerlak, 2013: 486). For the purposes of this review, we look at learning in political analy-
sis broadly, and our view reaches beyond the policy focus of learning per se.
Contents of Learning
The first strand of literature that we identify focuses on the contents of learning. Simply
put, research has assessed what political actors learn. These can be broad ideas about
paradigmatic policy decisions or more specific policy instruments. The ideational dimen-
sion entails learning of new values or beliefs about how policy should be made, whereas
the literature on policy instruments focuses on learning related to specific policy
306
Political Studies Review 18(2)
instruments which includes technical aspects and information relevant to implementation
(Howlett, 1991; May, 1992).
Social Learning and Ideas
Researchers have referred to social learning, if there are encompassing changes in the
pattern of governmental action, which entail a change in the order of policy instruments
in a field. The main reference of social learning in the political science literature is the
work by Peter Hall (1989, 1993, 2013). In opposition to the work of Heclo (1974), who
emphasized the dimension of political learning, Hall (1993: 278–279) makes the point
that the degree of policy change depends on social learning, namely on how much poli-
cymakers change their ideas and interpretation of the policy problem. According to Hall,
three degrees of policy change are possible: first-order changes that entail the adoption of
existing policy instruments, second-order changes that involve the adaptation of new
policy instruments, and third-order changes that comprise a change in the hierarchy of
policy instruments. Third-order changes are similar to changes of the policy paradigm
(Hall, 1993: 278), which is the basic framework of ideas and standards according to
which decision makers interpret a social problem and make policy (Hall, 1993: 279).
Although Hall addresses specific policy instruments, he mainly focuses on the ideational
and paradigmatic aspects of social learning.
Following Peter Hall’s work, researchers have analyzed the importance of ideas2 and
social learning for policy change. These works entail general accounts of ideas and public
policy (Braun and Busch, 1999), including research on the connection of social learning
and paradigms, such as institutional learning (Hemerijck and van Kersbergen, 1999). This
view follows the understanding of learning in the context of broad ideas and paradigms.
Solutions to social problems are analyzed as a process of rather broad ideas, such as
norms, beliefs, or cognitive frameworks, which provide the context (Hall, 1993), or the
cause (Parsons, 2002) for fundamental policy changes.
On a more implicit account, social learning is connected to the general literature on
policy and ideas (Béland and Cox, 2011), as well as policy paradigms (Béland and Cox,
2013). The empirical application of ideas and social learning has been studied regarding a
variety of policy fields. For example, researchers have studied learning and ideas in health
policy (Béland, 2010; Greener, 2002), environmental policy (Brummel et al., 2010; Fiorino,
2001; Steyaert and Jiggins, 2007), energy policy (Darby, 2006), water policy (Blackmore
et al., 2007), economic policy (Arifovic et al., 2013; Pemberton, 2000), European...
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