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Policy Learning and Failure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Peter J. May
Peter J. May
Affiliation:
Political Science, University of Washington
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Abstract

Multiple knowledges are available for utilisation in policy choice. The rank ordering of knowledges for use in decisionmaking is thus a fundamental predecision. This article shows how this predecision necessarily constrains the processes associated with a politics of ideas, using cases from American international commodity policy. Even when the supposed preconditions of this sort of politics are present, policy change did not occur when the proposed ideas arose from a knowledge accorded secondary status in policymaking circles. Several implications are discussed for the influence and the study of ideational politics. Ultimately, the politics of ideas, so often portrayed through cases of innovation, may be quite conservative, contained by knowledge hierarchies which reflect prior politicaxl circumstances.

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Type
Articles
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Journal of Public Policy , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , October 1992 , pp. 331 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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