Fostering Policy Learning: A Challenge for Public Administration

Peter J. May

International Review of Public Administration, 1999, vol. 4, issue 1, 21-31

Abstract: Fostering learning about what is desired and what works is an important goal for improving the quality of public policies. Despite many advances in tools, techniques, and approaches to analyzing policies, policy learning remains an elusive concept both for scholars and in practice. This article makes three contributions to scholarship about this topic. One is to clarify the meaning of the concept for which a distinction is made between instrumental and social forms of policy learning. A second contribution is identification of situations for which each form of learning is relatively easy or more difficult to undertake. The third is consideration of mechanisms and institutional designs that foster each form of learning.

Date: 1999
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DOI: 10.1080/12294659.1999.10804920

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