Policy learning and policy failure in Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 384-395
Author(s):  
Frank L. K. Ohemeng ◽  
Joshua Jebuntie Zaato
Keyword(s):  
Policy Learning ◽  
Policy Failure

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.

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.

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