政策范式、社会学习和国家:以英国经济政策的制定为例

Policy Paradigms,Social Learning,and the State:The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain

本文的目的是探究社会学习的本质,以及政策变迁过程。本文以英国1970—1989年的宏观经济政策制定为例,通过解剖政策过程(也就是根据所涉及的变化的程度将政策变迁分为三种子类型)和引入政策范式概念,探索了社会学习在政策制定过程中的作用,尤其是社会学习和国家自主性之间的关系,发现了比现时所知更丰富的社会学习的变化情形。本文研究的问题包括:应该怎样理解理念和政策制定之间的关系?政策变迁背后的理念是如何变动的?社会学习过程是像组织理论引导我们期望的那种相对渐进的过程,还是以剧变或在政治变迁中广泛运用的'断续性平衡'为特点?官僚是不是社会学习的主要行动者?政客和社会组织是否也扮演一定的角色?本文对当代国家理论具有重要的贡献。

The object of this article is to examine the nature of social learning and the more general process whereby policies change with a view to resolving some of these issues.Based on the case study of the macroeconomic policymaking in Britain between 1970 and 1989,and by disaggregating the process where by policy changes into three subtypes according to the magnitude of the changes involved and invoking the concept of policy paradigms,this article explores the role of social learning in the policymaking process,especially the relationship between social learning and the autonomy of the state,and discerns more variation in social learning than hitherto recognized.The main questions addressed by this article include:How should we understand the relationship between ideas and policymaking? How do the ideas behind policy change course? Is the process of social learning relatively incremental,as organization theory might lead us to expect,or marked by upheaval and the kind of "punctuated equilibrium" that often applies more generally to political change? Are bureaucrats the principal actors in social learning,or do politicians and societal organizations also play a role? This analysis has important implications for contemporary theories of the state.