Policy Learning

Learning in Public Policy

Learning is a preoccupation in the study of public policy for several reasons. First, there is a presumption that policy making is not entirely a matter of self-interested politics or power. Obviously, the policy process involves interest groups, political parties, social movements, classes, and other forces—and they battle for the supremacy of their agendas and their interests. But there is also the sense that policy making is about pursuing—in some large measure—the public interest. This means that policy is intended to contribute to the public good and that therefore it should be monitored (evaluated) regularly as conditions and information change, and improved if possible. This requires learning. Second, every model of the policy process assumes that policies (and their constituent programs) are intended to deal with public problems and therefore require a careful definition of exactly what the key features of the problem are, as well as its underlying causal factors. This requires reflection, research, and learning. Third, every model of the policy process also assumes a stage of evaluation, where policies are assessed for their effectiveness and efficiency and are modified and improved if possible. Evaluation is intrinsically a learning function.

The successful avoidance, or at least minimization, of mistakes is crucial for public policy and requires a capacity to learn. Part of the challenge of policy learning is that capacity is often blocked by a combination of factors. Uncertainty marks all policy fields, some more than others. Climate change science, for example, is enormously complicated [Page 1934]and was being seriously debated even into the 1990s. When governments around the world began massive bailouts and spending programs in 2009 to deal with the global financial crisis, no one was entirely sure what the impacts would actually be. Sometimes the evidence to assess policy interventions takes years to appear (e.g., poverty reduction programs in developing countries). Other policy fields, such as abortion or same-sex marriage, are driven more by moral or ethical perspectives than by scientific research and data. For these and other reasons, policy actors have to rely on policy issue frames or belief systems that consist of a reasonably consistent mix of data, information, research, values, interests, and deeply held assumptions or beliefs. These can operate in various ways, as broadly consistent worldviews of competing players in the policy process (e.g., environmental vs. economic development groups), as paradigms that are broadly accepted by most stakeholders in a policy field, or even broadly at the societal level (e.g., the reality and danger of global warming). So policy learning is not simply a matter of processing clear information or unambiguous experiences. Belief systems and paradigms are often deeply embedded among social actors or institutions and are internally consistent enough that they can resist contradictory evidence.

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