Policy Learning, Policy Failure, and the Mitigation of Policy Risks: Re-Thinking the Lessons of Policy Success and Failure

2021 ◽  
pp. 009539972110653
Author(s):  
Ching Leong ◽  
Michael Howlett
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Learning ◽  
Public Value ◽  
Policy Success ◽  
Policy Failure ◽  
Comparative Case Studies ◽  
Policy Problems ◽  
Policy Failures ◽  
Lesson Drawing

Policy failures are often assumed to be unintentional and anomalous events about which well-intentioned governments can learn why they occurred and how they can be corrected. These assumptions color many of the results from contemporary studies of policy learning which remain optimistic that ongoing policy problems can be resolved through technical learning and lesson drawing from comparative case studies. Government intentions may not be solely oriented toward the creation of public value and publics may not abide by government wishes, however, and studies of policy learning need to take these “darksides” of policy-making more seriously if the risks of policy failure are to be mitigated.

Policy Learning and Policy Failure

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Policy Diffusion ◽  
Policy Transfer ◽  
Policy Learning ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Policy Failure ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
Opportunities For Learning ◽  
Policy Failures

First published as a special issue of Policy & Politics, this updated volume explores policy failures and the valuable opportunities for learning that they offer. The book begins with an overview of policy learning and policy failure. The links between the two appear obvious, yet there are very few studies that address how one can learn from failure, learn to limit failure, and fail to learn. The book attempts to bring the two together. In doing so, it explores how dysfunctional forms of policy learning impact policy failure at the meso-level. The book expands on this by demonstrating how different learning processes generated by actors at the meso-level mediate the extent to which policy transfer is a success or failure. It re-assesses some of the literature on policy transfer and policy diffusion, in light of ideas as to what constitutes failure, partial failure, or limited success. This is followed by an examination of situations in which the incentives of partisanship can encourage a government to actively seek to exacerbate an existing policy failure rather than to repair it. The book studies the connections between repeated assessments of policy failure and subsequent opportunities for system-wide policy learning and reform. Finally, it introduces the idea of ‘policy myopia’ as a pressing source of failure in policy making and explores the possibility of developing policies that learn to help mitigate its impacts.

Between policy failure and policy success: bricolage, experimentalism and translation in policy transfer

2020 ◽  
pp. 71-92
Author(s):  
Diane Stone
Keyword(s):  
Policy Diffusion ◽  
Policy Transfer ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Policy Learning ◽  
Policy Adoption ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Selective Learning ◽  
Policy Success ◽  
Policy Failure ◽  
Lesson Drawing

This chapter re-assesses some of the literature on policy transfer and policy diffusion, in light of ideas as to what constitutes failure, partial failure, or limited success. Rather than frame a policy transfer as a failure or success, scholars must recognise transfer (and so failure) as a messy process involving an array of meso-level actors. Two aspects are of particular note. First, the treatment of imperfect transfer as underscored by flawed lesson-drawing is useful as it takes one back to questions about the depth of learning. Second, the chapter highlights two aspects of learning that are often overlooked in mainstream accounts: ‘negative lesson-drawing’ and selective learning. Negative lesson-drawing is a quest to avoid policy failure where policy learning is not synonymous with policy adoption. Instead, policy lessons can help crystallise what ideas and policy paths decision-makers do not wish to follow.

scholarly journals Intra-crisis learning and prospective policy transfer in the COVID-19 pandemic

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (9/10) ◽  
pp. 877-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Powell ◽  
Sophie King–Hill
Keyword(s):  
Design Methodology ◽  
Policy Transfer ◽  
Policy Learning ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Policy Performance ◽  
Policy Success ◽  
The Past ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Lesson Drawing

PurposeThis article brings together the literatures on policy learning and lesson drawing with the intra-crisis learning literature in order to assess “learning lessons” in the COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachIt carries out a structured review of articles that seek to provide lessons for the pandemic. It examines these articles using interpretative content analysis to apply the criteria of prospective policy transfer to the material.FindingsApplication of the criteria of prospective policy transfer suggests that lesson drawing was fairly limited. It is often not fully clear why nations were selected. Many articles were brief and provided limited detail, meaning that there was little depth on issues such as problems and goals and on policy performance or policy success or failure. There was limited discussion of transferability of lessons, and few clear lessons could be drawn. Finally, the extent to which it was possible to learn lessons in a “non-routine” or “less routine” crisis, under conditions of threat, uncertainty and urgency was generally not discussed.Practical implicationsThe criteria within the framework of prospective policy transfer provide a template for policy makers to assess lessons.Originality/valueThis article indicates the problems of attempting to draw lessons from the past or from other nations to an unprecedented crisis, where decision-making is characterized by elements of threat, urgency and uncertainty.

Mea Culpa? The Role of Data Collection in Public Officials Acknowledging Policy Failure

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Sarah James
Keyword(s):  
Policy Making ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Research Capacity ◽  
Policy Learning ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Policy Failure ◽  
The Impact

Abstract State governments, often described as “laboratories of democracy,” design and implement many public policies, but this moniker also implies course correction when initial efforts fail. But how do states learn from failure? Existing hypotheses about policy learning and broad research capacity are insufficient. Using case studies of failed juvenile justice policies in Texas and Washington, I explore when failure acknowledgment occurs at all. I argue that a state’s bureaucratic capacity to gather data—distinct from its analytical capacity—is necessary for public officials to acknowledge failure, highlighting the impact of policy and institutional design on evidence-based policy making and policy corrections.

Policy Success, Policy Failure and Grey Areas In-Between

2010 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALLAN McCONNELL
Keyword(s):  
Policy Evaluation ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Public Value ◽  
Policy Success ◽  
Policy Failure ◽  
Multiple Dimensions

AbstractPolicy protagonists are keen to claim that policy is successful while opponents are more likely to frame policies as failures. The reality is that policy outcomes are often somewhere in between these extremes. An added difficulty is that policy has multiple dimensions, often succeeding in some respects but not in others, according to facts and their interpretation. This paper sets out a framework designed to capture the bundles of outcomes that indicate how successful or unsuccessful a policy has been. It reviews existing literature on policy evaluation and improvement, public value, good practice, political strategy and policy failure and success in order to identify what can be built on and gaps that need to be filled. It conceives policy as having three realms: processes, programs and politics. Policies may succeed and/or fail in each of these and along a spectrum of success, resilient success, conflicted success, precarious success and failure. It concludes by examining contradictions between different forms of success, including what is known colloquially as good politics but bad policy.

The Politics of School Desegreration: Comparative Case Studies of Community Structure and Policy-Making.

Social Forces ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 355
Author(s):  
Howard Elinson ◽  
Robert L. Crain ◽  
Morton Inger ◽  
Gerald A. McWorter ◽  
James J. Vaneco
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
Comparative Case Studies
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