Meseguer: Poilcy Learning, Policy Diffusion and the Making of a New Order

Meseguer, Covadonga. (2005). "Policy Learning, Policy Diffusion, and the Making of a New Order". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 598, 67-82.

"This article surveys the role of learning as mechanism of policy diffusion in the context of the creation of a new political order” (67).

Mexeguer examines how learning from the examples of others may have contributed to policy diffusion and liberalization in the later decades of the 20th century. Specifically, the author examines whether or not countries and polities learned from failed collectivization and interventionism policies. This article attempts to more broadly contextualize the idea of learning as a tool of policy diffusion, examine alternative perspectives and explain the difficulties of testing this empirically.

“I argue that although learning is suggested as a fundamental mechanism of diffusion of the previous wave of deregulation and privatization and of the current wave of regulatory reforms, we still lack the empirical tests to evaluate the impact that learning may have had on these two trends” (68).

Learning is a voluntary act (71). It also implies an adaptation of beliefs (72). “Rational learning, in short, would imply convergence i9n policy choices. This is a model of learning that seems to match the sort of trend this chapter seeks to explain” (72).

Bounded learning is placed in contrast to rational learning. “Rather than scanning all information, governments look at relevant information” (72).

“Empirically, there is a strong evidence for the hypothesis that emulation has driven the adoption of a wide range of economic and social policy reforms. There is also strong evidence that emulation is behind the very recent ascendance of the regulatory state…The truth is that the empirical evidence we can rely on is still limited and partial (79).