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Over the years, policy learning has emerged as a theoretical lens to provide an alternative understanding of powering-based approaches to the policy process and policy outcomes. This has been a success story, with policy learning gaining presence among theoretical frameworks on the policy process. However, the puzzling-powering dichotomy is reductive. In real-world policy processes, we find both puzzling and powering. Also, we cannot reduce the value of learning to what is not explained by power alone. This Introduction shows how puzzling and powering interact and with what consequences on policy processes, moving beyond the dichotomy. We present how the four contributions of this Special Issue explore this territory and suggest how to approach the design of governance architectures for learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy agendas are often cast in semantic constructions that portray them as universally desirable outcomes. These semantic constructions protect and reinforce the power of dominant coalitions and make it hard to pursue alternatives. The semantic space is entirely occupied by the dominant concepts. At the same time, within the dominant coalition, ideational conflict is muted by decontesting concepts. Drawing on political theory, I show the presence of this double act of reducing the semantic space and decontesting concepts with the case of 'better regulation'. Then I briefly extend the argument to other terms such as policy coherence, agile governance, smart cities and social value judgements. The critical discussion of the implications of dominant language brings in transparency, allows other coalitions to articulate their vision in a discursive level-playing-field, and offers citizens the possibility to discuss what is really 'better' and 'for whom'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ideational explanations of policy change are popular in the fields of political economy, comparative politics and policy analysis. And yet, to make the case for ideational explanations, we must make further progress on the nature of ideas, where they come from, what they consist of, and how they change over time. We highlight four critical building sites concerning the definitional aspects of ideational explanations, micro-foundations, mechanisms and the difference between ideational and cognitive analysis. We make recommendations on how to carry out work in the building sites and describe the range of suggestions and ways forward found in the articles of this Symposium. We also suggest cross-fertilising political science with the findings of neighbouring disciplines that have developed empirically robust models of ideation and cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how policy learning can improve comparative policy analysis by focusing on causality in learning processes. After summarizing the comparative credentials of the policy learning literature, the article outlines a framework of four learning modes, relating it to three approaches of causality: deterministic, probabilistic, and set-theoretic. It then builds on this to explore different approaches to causation and learning in relation to: policy change, political contexts, and, finally, the temporal and spatial dimensions of comparative policy analysis. The article concludes by showing how these challenges are addressed and suggesting implications for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instead, they approached the theories of the policy process from the vantage point of discussing design, global policy, entrepreneurship and the ideas that shape policies. Here, Stone and Saddiki open our minds even further, with Stone arguing authoritatively about Fact and Fiction in making global policy and introducing us to transnational policy communities, the methodology of transnationalism and the key concept of transnational policy persuasion (where she contrasts evidence-based policy and science diplomacy). I Elements in Public Policy i is a Cambridge series designed to provide concise accounts (approximately 25,000 words) of the state of the art in public policy. [Extracted from the article]

What is the causal relationship between crisis, learning and change? How did causality unfold in the key years of 2009–2010 when the European Union had to face the most formidable attacks to the single currency and responded with substantial reforms of the euro area? We question the conventional identification of the cause-and-effect relationship provided by theories of crisis management, integration and policy learning. Drawing on models of contingent learning developed within psychology and behavioural economics, we theorize that surprise produces behavioural change via a fast-paced associative mechanism and that policy learning follows change. We then run our exercise in causal identification through a plausibility probe. We show that our argument passes the plausibility probe. Our conclusions on cognition and situational effects on learning during crises suggest a new research agenda, more sensitive to how individuals behave in the real world and more robust in its micro-foundations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under which conditions does the open method of co-ordination match the standards for demoi-cracy? To answer this question, we need some explicit standards about demoi-cracy. In fact, open co-ordination serves three different but interrelated purposes in European Union policy: to facilitate convergence; to support learning processes; and to encourage exploration of policy innovation. By intersecting standards and purposes, we find open co-ordination is neither inherently ‘good’ nor ‘bad’ for demoi-cracy, as it depends on how it has been put into practice. Therefore, we qualify the answer considering the empirical evidence on how normative principles hit the road of implementation. In the final part of this paper, we look into the demoi-cratic effects of the Eurozone's economic and financial crisis on our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents the author's view of the theoretical foundation of cathedral. It reveals the theoretical foundations that informed its design and handle the European Union (EU) comparatively, with coherent political science framework covering other examples of integration and domestic politics. It suggests accepting the accept that other views of the Cathedral exist, are theoretically possible, and may be corroborated by empirical.

An important proposition in public policy analysis is that the design and selection of policy instruments is a manifestation of power relations; in other words, 'politics determines instruments'. However, except where it degenerates into tick-the-box routines, instrumentation can also generate its own political effects at the implementation stage - the 'instruments determine politics' argument. Examining the impact assessment (IA) element of the EU's Better Regulation agenda of the European Union, this article argues that procedures and meta-instruments are chosen by policy-makers when there is disagreement on fundamental issues of power. Policy-makers activate meta-instruments that do not address fundamental issues directly, but change procedures of policy formulation. In so doing, however, they create a new structure of opportunity, which produces its own effects on politics. Our findings point to unintended effects of IA, such as administrative coordination and organisational learning, as well as strengthening of the Commission Secretariat General. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including an analysis of competition policy and regional aid in the European Union, Europeanization program implementation, and new modes of governance in the European Union.

Can a learning-based mode of governance, specifically the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), facilitate Europeanization? The argument is that, in policy areas where the Treaty base for European Union policy is thin or non-existent or where diverging political views hinder the development of law, modes of governance based on Council's guidelines, the co-ordination of national action plans, peer review of reforms, systematic benchmarking, performance indicators, and governance processes open to the regional-local level and the civil society produce convergence towards the EU goals and ultimately Europeanization without the need to create new EU legislation. By comparing evidence from the most mature OMC processes, this article finds that the relationship between learning, policy change, and Europeanization can break down at several points, and that evidence of learning is limited. This is due to deficiencies in the design of the OMC, the lack of participation, and the political/institutional complexities of learning in the EU context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the conceptual framework of Europeanisation, we trace the influence of the European Union (EU) on Italian politics by combining top-down analysis (that is, how Italy has adapted to pressure coming from Brussels) with a bottom-up examination of how Italian policy makers have encountered the EU in their attempts to pursue domestic policy goals. We find that the foreign policy orientation and policy preferences of the governing coalition determine the posture, style and choice of institutional venues. Taken together, bottom-up and top-down assessments of Europeanisation suggest that, during the second Berlusconi government, the influence of the EU in Italian politics was limited - although not trivial. When the Berlusconi government (2001-06) faced high pressure, it tried to reduce it at source rather than adapting to EU policies. By contrast, the centre-left governments (1996-2001) used pressure as a lever for policy change, while the governments of the 1980s responded to pressure by delaying implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines policy change and the role of discourse in Europe. Relationship between the power of ideas and interests as seen through discussions of arguing versus bargaining; Europeanization; Transformative power and limitations of discourse; Scope of learning in policy change.

Examines conceptual and methodological issues in policy change and discourse in Europe. Factors in policy change; Role of discourse in institutional learning; Ontological and epistemological foundations of discourse.

The role of expertise in European public policy has become the object of a passionate debate. On the one hand, it has been argued that knowledge, in various guises, can foster learning, enlightenment, problem-solving attitudes, and policy change. On the other, the public policy of the European Union (EU) is in the firing line because of its technocratic bias. However, what is meant by technocracy in the case of the EU? How can political scientists be fascinated by the positive input of knowledge, and, at the same time, horrified by technocratic policy-making? The aim of this article is to tackle this puzzle by suggesting a conceptual framework. Concepts such as technocracy, epistemic communities, and bureaucratic politics refer to different modes of the politics of expertise. Empirically, they should be contrasted with the logic of politicization. Case studies discussed in this article suggest that the power of expertise is being counterbalanced by politicization. The conclusion is that the main challenge is neither to preserve an unattainable depoliticized Union nor to assume that politicization will tame technocracy, but to make expertise more accountable in an increasingly politicized environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Consultation is a policy instrument geared toward stakeholder engagement in the formulation of primary and secondary legislation. It ensures certain categories of actors can access draft proposals, examine the evidence produced by government or regulators, provide comments and receive feedback. Using an original dataset of consultation design across the EU-28, we examine how variations in combinations of consultation design matter for perceptions of corruption. Using Ostrom's Institutional Grammar Tool (IGT), we develop expectations about the causal effects of combinations of formal consultation rules together with the condition of social capital, which captures important attributes of the context in which consultation operates. We test our expectations using set-theoretic techniques. Our findings indicate: formal consultation rules are rarely sufficient for mitigating perceptions of corruption, legally prescribed procedures are often replaced by informal rules, and the limited effect of formal consultation rules on perceptions of corruption is due to an incomplete design of the procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It seems paradoxical to suggest that theories of learning might be used to explain policy failure. Yet the Brexit fiasco connects with recent approaches linking varieties of policy learning to policy pathologies. This article sets out to explain the UK government's (mis)management of the Brexit process from June 2016 to May 2019 from a policy learning perspective. Drawing on interviews with UK policy-makers and stakeholders, we ask how did the UK government seek to learn during the Brexit negotiations? We consider four modes of learning: reflexivity, epistemic, hierarchical, and bargaining. By empirically tracing the policy process and scope conditions for each of these, we argue that learning through the first three modes proved highly dysfunctional. This forced the government to rely on bargaining between competing factions, producing a highly political form of learning which stymied the development of a coherent Brexit strategy. We argue that the analysis of Brexit as a policy process – rather than a political event – reveals how policy dynamics play an important role in shaping the political context within which they are located. The article concludes that public policy analysis can, therefore, add significant value to our understanding of Brexit by endogenising accounts of macro political developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political control of the bureaucracy is a major theme in public administration scholarship, particularly in delegation theory. There is a wide range of policy instruments suitable for the purpose of control. In practice, however, there are economic and political limitations to deploying the full arsenal of control tools. We explore the implications of the costs of control by examining cross-country patterns of fire alarms. We identify and categorize a set of control instruments and their rationale using accountability typologies. We then code the presence or absence of different instruments by drawing on an original dataset of 14 instruments in a population of 17 European countries. Using configurational analysis, we analyse cross-country patterns. In the conclusions, we reflect on the patterns identified, their implications for controlling bureaucracy in advanced democracies and the literature on administrative traditions. We finally propose how our empirical findings may be extended to further explanatory analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]