Learning heuristics, issue salience and polarization in the policy process

Abstract

and a senior fellow at UC Berkeley. His research interests cover policy coordination and integration, the politics of digital public policy, health policy, and federalism as well as multilevel governance. His research has been published in leading political science and public policy journals as well as with major university presses. More information can be found here: www.philipptrein.com Thenia Vagionaki is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Political Studies at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Her research focuses on policy learning and EU studies. Her most recent work has been published in Political Studies Review and with Palgrave Macmillan.

Policy learning type shifts during creeping crises: A storyboard of COVID‐19 driven learning in Belgium

“…Furthermore, due to the divisive risk perceptions this crisis creates, there is more room for politicization and contestation, particularly during interspersing periods of calmness and uneven threat perceptions (see Boin et al, 2020). This creates perturbations in the policy‐making context, often necessitating different approaches to engaging with knowledge and expertise (e.g., Boswell, 2008; Trein & Vagionaki, 2022), and changes in policy issue construction necessitating different types of learning (e.g., Dunlop & Radaelli, 2013). These conditions make it likely that settings and calibrations of existing policy instruments require frequent finetuning to match the evolving crisis nature (e.g., May, 1992), or that understandings of policy issue construction are adjusted to align with its evolving meanings.…”

Linking compliance and policy learning

“…10 Policy learning is mostly understood as "the acquisition of new relevant information that permits the updating of beliefs about the effect of a new policy" (Braun & Gilardi, 2006, p. 306). Scholars have long explored exactly how this updating of beliefs occurs and what it means for policymakers in a variety of contexts and policy processes Vagionaki & Trein, 2020;Trein & Vagionaki, 2022). A more encompassing definition of policy learning views it as "1) a collective process, which may include acquiring information through diverse actions (e.g.…”

Don’t think it’s a good idea! Four building sites of the ‘ideas school’

“…Hence, Cino Pagliarello argues, we must face it up-front and include it in ideational explanations in suitable ways, with the assistance of the insights of sociology of science. Trein and Vagionaki (2021) draw on the behavioural economics and crisis management literature to embed issue salience and polarisation in mechanisms of power and policy-oriented learning.…”