Post-recession UK road policy change: The role of individual and collective learning

What role does the individual and collective cognition of policymakers play in the relation between economic crises and policy change? Post-recession road building plans in the United Kingdom (1988-2011) are a particularly illuminating case to demonstrate the complex and volatile nature of the causal interdependencies between crisis, individual learning, collective learning, and policy change within a particular collective setting. In this Chapter, we analyse the statements of all policymakers who participated to the meetings of the Commons Transport Committee (CTSC) – a crucial collective structure in the policymaking process of this sector. We interpret them according to a set of theoretical expectations about the relation between crises, policy learning and policy change. The case study showed that changes in the dominant paradigms did occur over time, within the CTSC. In addition, paradigm changes were clearly connected to policy changes: during each period of time, policy decisions were undoubtedly inspired by the dominant paradigm among the members of the CTSC. Our analysis suggests that paradigm changes resulted from individual and collective learning. At the collective level, during each period of time, there was a fair amount of policymakers supporting different policy paradigms who participated to the same meetings (ties), which suggests that those policymakers had many opportunities to acquire, translate and disseminate information that challenged their pre-existing beliefs (collective learning). This being said, the high number of “within-paradigm” ties also suggests some form of learning through the reinforcement of existing beliefs. Overall, the intensity of debates (“within-paradigm” and “between-paradigms” ties) is high, within the CTSC. This suggests that collective structures enhancing the quantity and quality of debates are conducive to policy learning. At the individual level, the analysis of policymakers who participated to CTSC sessions during more than one period of time suggests that some learning also occurred. However, many policymakers did not change their beliefs. Despite this, there is a collective dynamic resulting from rules, routines and other CTSC structural aspects that elicits paradigm changes whereas many individual policymakers do still not support those changes. Hence, consistent with theory, collective and individual learning are connected but different processes: collective learning is more than the simple sum of individual learning processes. Overall, this study adds evidence to policy process theories’ contention that the effects of external shocks, as drivers of policy change, strongly depend on policymakers’ reactions to those shocks as well as the effect of collective structures on learning processes

Thymus histogenesis in C3H mice.

The histogenesis of the mouse thymus was studied by means of light and electron microscopy in an attempt to clarify the simultaneous development of stromal and lymphoid cell populations. On the twelfth day of embryonic life, the thymus primordium was composed principally of undifferentiated epithelial cells and some lymphoblasts. In the developing cortical regions, lymphoblasts accumulated rapidly, stretching the epithelial cells which became stellate in shape. The latter contained multivesicular bodies and, from the sixteenth day on, also typical clear vacuoles. Medullary regions were prefigurated as soon as day 13 by several areas wherein lymphoblasts were sparse and epithelial cells were closely associated, with numerous desmosomes and abundant tonofilaments. On the sixteenth day, some epithelial cells in these regions were differentiated into globular cells, or formed Hassall's corpuscles and intra- or extracellular cysts. On the seventeenth day, the presence of interdigitating cells in the medullary areas completed cortico-medullary differentiation. On the eighteenth day, small cortical thymocytes differentiated and the thymus possessed all characteristics of an adult thymus. Thus, at birth, the histogenesis of the mouse thymus was achieved and the only further modification consisted in a gain of weight

Das Klima und die EU: Eine Diskursperspektive auf die deutsche und schweizerische Klimapolitik

This contribution analyzes the potential transformation of the media discourse related to Swiss and German climate policy. In particular, we strive to highlight how the crises of the European Union (EU) are echoed in the climate policy discourse. A new dataset was generated to analyze the political discourse of climate policy between 2009-2017, through the systematic review of media attention and a detailed discourse network analysis. Several hypotheses have guided the analysis. Firstly, we expect that climate discourses in both countries are generally similar, primarily with regard to media attention and the composition of discourse coalitions. Secondly, we expect that external events such as the climate conference in Copenhagen, the reactor accident in Fukushima or the Paris agreement to influence media attention. The third expectation claims that EU crises may be noticed in the discourse as well, visible as dips in attention, primarily in Germany. Finally, the discourse coalitions in both countries will promote a different discourse related to the EU in order to achieve their climate policy goals; in Switzerland pursued primarily through conservative voices, while in Germany the progressive coalitions will argue in favor of EU climate policy and strengthened cooperation among member states

Cognition and policy change: the consistency of policy learning in the advocacy coalition framework

Policy actors involved in decision-making processes interact and gradually accumulate evidence about policy problems and solutions. As a result, they update their policy beliefs and preferences over time. This process of policy learning is consistent if policy preferences are aligned with any adaptations in beliefs about policy outcomes – a crucial condition of learning-induced policy changes. This article examines whether and when policy learning is consistent based on regression analyses conducted on data from a 2012 survey of 293 Belgian actors involved in the European liberalization policy process for the rail and electricity sectors. In line with the advocacy coalition framework, existing research has suggested that motivated modes of reasoning, such as selective exposure and biased assimilation, influence policy actors’ attitudes and behaviours. This study isolates the effect of biased assimilation on policy learning by demonstrating that when policy actors adapt their beliefs about policy outcomes, they do not necessarily align their policy preferences with those adaptations. Furthermore, biased assimilation is higher among politically curious actors, but their degree of commitment to the policy process does not appear to play a role. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed