Learning heuristics, issue salience and polarization in the policy process

Abstract

This article proposes a theory that links issue salience and actor polarisation to the uses of learning heuristics in the policy process. In harking back to research on public policy, behavioural economics, and crisis management, we argue that policy makers use two learning heuristics when they update their policy ideas: policy-oriented learning and power-oriented learning. The article develops theoretical expectations that link issue salience and polarisation of actor constellations to policy-oriented and power-oriented learning. To illustrate the theoretical expectations, the article discusses EU anti-crisis policies dealing with the 2007–2009 global financial and economic crisis and its aftermath, as well as the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany and the U.S. as pathway cases. Overall, this article contributes to the understanding of learning and the political uses of ideas in the policy process.

Keywords:

• Ideas
• politics
• policy learning
• political learning
• EU crisis
• COVID-19
• pandemic

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 It is difficult to conclude with certainty at this point whether decision makers neglected fiscal policy ideas because they did not know or ignored them deliberately. Nevertheless, since ideas about fiscal integration have been discussed since the 1970s, we can assume that information about the need for a fiscal risk-sharing mechanism was available to policy makers. Further research could try to disentangle the role of neglect and ignorance in dealing with such information.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung [Grant numbers 162832 and 185963].

Notes on contributors

Philipp Trein

Philipp Trein is a senior research at the University of Geneva 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 at www.philipptrein.com. [[email protected]]

Thenia Vagionaki

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. [[email protected]]