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Policy Learning

Policy learning is when policy makers compare current policy problems to the previous ones within their own or in other jurisdictions, their have to learn from history and develop an understanding on why certain government's implemented a policy, what were the effects of the policy and if implemented in their jurisdiction what should be the policy’s objective (Moran, Rein, Goodin, 2009).  Before a policy is adopted it has to go through a crucial process which involves elected official(s), different political parties, bureaucrat/civil servants, different advocacy groups, policy experts or consultants, corporations, think tanks, different levels of government and in some instances a policy can be challenged at Judiciary system questioning the legality of a policy (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000).

 In today’s globalized world policy learning through globalization has helped government organizations to become more competitive in policy learning and to confront new challenges that their may face (Seabrooke, 2012). Policy makers around the world who want to implement a policy in their jurisdiction now have access to policy knowledge at their finger tips through the internet, access to think tanks, international institutions such as United Nations, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank or any individual(s) who are experts in a particular field can be reach via different communication methods (Seabrooke, 2012; Common, 2004).

The lessons of policy learning are how to successful transfer a policy, which includes copying the entire or some parts of a policy and policies that are adopted by certain governments tend to reflect their ideological positions (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000). Before a policy is adopted policy makers must have complete knowledge about the policy, implementing an adopted policy must be successful to resolve past policy problems, delivering services effectively and using governments resources efficiently (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000).

If an adopted policy is not properly understood it will fail, if a failed policy is adopted at the jurisdiction where it was implemented will result in failure and on the contrary the failure of implementing an otherwise successful adopted policy will also fail (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000). These policy failures can have serious consequences especially if the government has to use its resources effectively and the future of adopting policies will face a negative reception in that jurisdiction (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000).

How do policymakers learn? 

In the 1960s academics started to study on how governments learn about policies, during that time different countries across Continents were experiencing different social, political, economic and technological change (Moran, Rein, Goodin, 2009). What academics discovered was that governments across different countries faced similar problems in policies, programs; there was a great amount of uncertainty on what governments should do and governments of industrialist countries and other big government countries start to face problems in financing its welfare programs (Moran, Rein, Goodin, 2009). Policy-makers first start to learn about policy through facts, first hand experiences or from the experiences of others which eventually lets policy makers to make changes or implement a new policy (Dobbin, Simmons, & Garrett, 2007 & Lindberg, 2013).

Policy instruments and policy implementation are the steps to policy learning, this process includes policies to be enacted by the either one or different government agencies; policy instruments and policy implementations have to be successful because it will affect the country’s people, businesses and the way services are delivered (Birkland, 2011 & Lindberg, 2013). Policy makers start to learn about a policy failure by reviewing the policy objectives, policy instrument tools, policy implementation strategies and this review will determine where the failure occurred (Birkland, 2011). Policy instrument tools will determine if the correct ones are being used or if there need to be repealed and lastly the policy implementation will determine if good policy has been implemented poorly in a government agency or the if policy itself was a failure (Birkland, 2011 & Moran, Rein, Goodin, 2009).

Instrumental Policy Learning

Instrumental policy learning is when policy makers learn about the effectiveness of policy interventions, implementation of policy designs, when policy makers encounter a challenge in a given policy their have to make the choice on what the appropriate policy intervention tool(s) to use (Birkland, 2011). The criterion typically for policy makers is to use the most effective policy tool(s) and at the same time consume the least resources, using unpopular policy tools in some cases can be withheld before an election and if a policy is unpopular it can change an election outcomes (Pal, 1997).

The seven major policy instruments that policy makers have are ‘direct provision’ services that governments decide to provide, such as publicly funded schools, health care, garbage collection; ‘subsidy’ are given by the government to reduced the cost for the producer or consumer such as dairy farmers that receive subsidies which provides a lower cost for dairy products and to secure dairy workers employment; ‘tax’ is a form of revenue to the government that provides public services, ‘contract’ policy makers have to make decision to outsource public service because of budget constrains, private companies offer a lower cost in providing the service, ‘authority’ government have the authority to pass and enforce laws, ‘regulation’ are introduced in different forms such as economic, social or environmental, regulation of utilities would be meat inspection, safety regulations or antidiscrimination laws and the self regulation are in fields of medicine, law, engineering these professions have established regulatory bodies to enforce standards and monitor compliance on their fields and to regulate or prohibit certain behaviors is an important aspect for policy makers and ‘exhortation’ is when private or government organization act in a conscious conclusion and this is most common for cigarette product that have a warning message about health risk associated with cigarette smoking (Pal, 1997).

After deciding on what policy instrument tool(s) to use, policy makers have to develop an approach on how to implement a policy, the implementation of a bad a policy will result in a policy failure and if a well-designed policy is not implemented successful it will fail (Pal, 1997). Implementation of any policy will always be unpredictable, policy makers need to learn several techniques for a successful implementation (Pal, 1997).  First and foremost having adequate time and sufficient resources such time, money and people, having clear communication and understanding on the objectives of the policy, avoid implementation policy designs that need several approvals from different organizations or having to reply on complex management structures (Pal, 1997). Finally having all organizations in compliance with implementing the new policy procedure and policy makers should have pre-planned scenario with repairing tools incase the policy implementation does not go as planned (Pal, 1997).

Top – down approach

The top down approach to implementation policy is when policy makers can learn by studying how the highest level of policy designers can set an objective and a policy design implementation strategy, which has to be carried out by the lower level policy implementers (Birkland, 2011). To understand this approach the policy goal(s) must be clearly defined in a top down approach and the policy tools that will be used should defined on how to accomplish the policy objective (Birkland, 2011). Policy designers should know about the policy implementer’s availability of monetary and human resources, legal authority and autonomy and the knowledge to effectively implement the policy (Birkland, 2011).  Then policy designers should know the commitment of lower level policy implementers who could be teachers, police officers, social workers or anyone who provides services either from the government or private sector that will be affect by the new policy (Birkland, 2011). The lower level implementers now have to effectively implement a policy from the top policy design implementer (Birkland, 2011). 

One example of the top down approach was set in 1973 when the American Congress passed a policy limiting the driving speed to 55 mph on America’s freeways under National Maximum Speed Law (Birkland, 2011).  The objective of the policy was to promote fuel efficiency, however from 1973 and the early 1990s vehicle fuel efficiency by federal policies had required vehicle manufacturers to have a 27.5 miles per gallon for cars and 20.7 miles per gallon for light trucks which had already contributed to fuel efficiency for vehicles (Birkland, 2011).  The side effect of the speed limit policy was the reduction of freeway fatalities and even though highway safety advocated fought with success to keep the law in place but by late 1980s the law was repealed (Birkland, 2011). The National Maximum Speed Law (NMSL) is an example on how a clear policy objective didn’t achieve the desired results and policy makers have to continue to evaluate a policy even though the implementation was a success.

 Bottom – up approach

The bottom up approach is another effective policy learning method. This approach will help policy makers to evaluate if the policy goals are open to more than one interpretation rather than being stated clearly (Birkland, 2011).  Does the policy have statue or law that was passed by a legislative body or is the policy considered as a set of laws, rules, practices, norms such as energy policy or criminal procedure, will the policy goals conflict within the same policy and how will the policy affect the implementation of the street level bureaucrats (Birkland, 2011). Policy makers will have to ask the street level bureaucrats about their goals, strategies, activities and then develop a technique of identify the local, regional, national actors who will be involved in the planning, financing and execution of the government policy (Birkland, 2011 & Sabatier, 1986). This bottom up approach starts from the street level bureaucrats and moves up to the top policy makers in the public and private sectors and if the policy faces push back policy makers will have to be open to negotiations or a compromise to achieve the policy goals (Birkland, 2011 & Sabatier, 1986). Bottom up approach emphasizes on the lowest level policy implementers but policy learners need to realize that there should not frustrate the goals of the top policy makers (Birkland, 2011 & Sabatier, 1986).

In America the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a policy that would have benefited if the bottom up approach were applied (Matthews, 2004). When the NCLB was passed many states struggled in the beginning to figure out what was required by the legislation, then all States across the America had to get their State education plan approved by U.S. Department of Education (Matthews, 2004). If the education plan was approved then each State had focus on how to incorporate NCLB into the State’s framework of educational governance and how to use the legislation to achieve the State own goals for education performance (Matthews, 2004). If the U.S. federal government had consulted with each State about its education policies, performances, future goals, teachers and then the federal government would have a better understanding on what policy objectives were achievable at the both the Federal and State level governments (Matthews, 2004).

International Institutions

International governing organizations (IGOs) like the Organization for Economic Co – operation and Development (OECD), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, United Nations and various other agencies have influenced countries around the globe on learning and adopting policies (Kudrle, 2014). The OECD base is in high income countries but it has moved towards cooperating with other G20 countries on issues such as personal tax evasion or corporate tax avoidance that are faced by both developing and developed countries, the OECD redeveloped Model Tax Treaty which was used as a single state sharing tax information and is now an international system of sharing tax information via the OECD (Kudrle, 2014).

When developing or under developed countries apply for loans from the IMF or World Bank there have to adopt a policy transfer in order to be eligible for aid assistance or loan eligibility (Seabrooke, 2012). In the past the IMF and World Bank have evaluated a particular country’s policy and then determined whether that particular country will have to change its women’s rights, either lower or eliminate trade tariffs, restrict government spending or any policy reform that two these institutions have determined will be successful in a particular country to achieve its goal (Seabrooke, 2012). The United Nations (UN) can be regarded as one of the major institution for influencing policy on human rights (Seabrooke, 2012). The UN has help under developing or developing countries in implementation policies that respect human rights, which include child labor laws, women’s rights and labor laws (Seabrooke, 2012).  When these countries that failure to enforce human rights there can face UN sanctions that could include other countries not doing business with them, their can get denied loans from the IMF or World Bank and their governments can be held accountable by international law (Heupel, 2013).

Challenges of policy learning

Policy learning will not always be embraced in some parts of the world because some countries that were colonialized fear that embracing policies from international institutions will lead to other countries exploiting their resources. Rockefeller (1966) explained that in Latin America in the early 1960s free market policies were starting to be embraced, when communist propaganda start to spread across different Latin American countries that American business were exploiting the people and their resources. However, American private companies like Chase Manhattan Bank had launched a program in Panama to improve cattle raising by training cattlemen to follow the advances of scientific programs of seeding, feeding and breeding cattle in a more effective manner. This process improved the quality of beef, which encouraged higher meat consumption, improved the people dietary standards and made Panama a beef exporter (Rockefeller, 1966).

The European Central Bank with the currency called the Euro, made trading between EU countries easier if there joined the EU and adopted the Euro (Blanchard & Johnson, 2016). Adopting the Euro would remove the cost for exchange rates, other European countries learned from other EU countries that by joining the EU would give them access to other markets (Blanchard & Johnson, 2016). Citizens of EU member countries could travel to different EU countries without requiring a visa; however, by 2008 the financial crisis led the EU central bank to decrease interest rates, to encourage borrowing for individuals and businesses to spur economic growth (Blanchard & Johnson, 2016). After two years of low interest rates some EU member countries like Germany started to have strong economic growth and lower unemployment, but some countries like Italy, Greece still had high unemployment and low economic growth that didn’t justify raising the interest rates (Blanchard & Johnson, 2016). German economy at the time was overheating and justified an interest rate increase and this caused an unintended consequence when it came to economic downturns for the entire EU nations (Blanchard & Johnson, 2016). European countries that decided to join the EU after learning the policies and how it affected other EU countries did not learn the policies on how the European Central Bank would affect the interest rates in economic downturns (Blanchard & Johnson, 2016).