Knowledge and Policy Change

Abstract

Knowledge and learning play important roles in policy change in advanced societies, and political processes cannot be properly understood if you neglect their significance. To understand how learning takes place and what role knowledge plays in the policy process, we need to have theoretical and methodological tools to analyse these features.

In a research project on economic-political learning at the Ratio Institute a new book has been published edited by Henrik Lindberg. The conceptual framework for this volume, Knowledge and Policy Change (Cambridge Scholar Publishing 2012), focuses on issues such as belief systems, paradigmatic and pragmatic policy change, and the role of advocacy coalitions within policy subsystems. No less important is the role various forms of knowledge can and do play in the policy formation process.

The book is structured around three main themes:
• Theories of the policy process and the role of knowledge
• Reform and restructuring of welfare states
• Policy transfer, diffusion and implementation processes

Lindberg, H. M. (Ed.). (2013). Knowledge and Policy Change. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.