Asia

Policy & Politics Highlights collection on new Special Issue on Policy Learning and Policy Innovation: Interactions and Intersections by Claire Dunlop, Claudio Radaelli, Ellen Wayenberg and Bishoy Zaki

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by Sarah Brown, Journals Manager


The idea of innovation has become one of the most persistent and sought-after today. While too conceptually elusive to pin down to a single statement, innovation can be broadly understood as a process whereby new elements and approaches are introduced to existing ones, in an attempt to solve problems, add value, and contribute to knowledge. Being a problem-solving, value-oriented process, it is no surprise that the concept of innovation is increasingly finding footholds in different theoretical spaces within policy and political sciences, from collaborative arrangements, democratic practices, policy design and experimentation, to behavioural and cognitive theories. Within the public sector, innovation can be understood as the creation of new policies, services, advisory, governance and political arrangements, often leading to the development of novel shared views of what is acceptable and expected by the public as beneficiaries.  

Intuitively, policy learning has a family resemblance to policy innovation. It seems almost self-evident that they should be considered together in the explanation of policy dynamics. Yet the two literatures have developed independently of each other. Studies which put them in conversation are few.  

Our motivation then is simple.  

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NEW SPECIAL ISSUE BLOG SERIES ON Policy Learning: Types, Mechanisms and Effects. BLOG 1: Ad hoc groups and policy learning under crisis: more than a ‘quick fix’

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by Sreeja Nair 


Each time a crisis hits, be it a natural disaster, pandemic or a corruption scandal, several ad hoc units are assembled by governments for quick action, only to be dismantled soon after the crisis becomes manageable or settles. Are these groups deployed as a signal of assurance to the public that indeed some action is being taken, or to bypass long-drawn bureaucratic processes in favour of quick action or to efficiently assemble and utilise resources under crisis? Perhaps all of the above. The possibilities of how ad hoc groups can be structured and the range of functions these can offer are plenty.  

The term ‘adhocracy’ first featured in the book titled ‘The Temporary Society’ (Bennis and Slater, 1968) to describe flexible, unstructured and adaptable organisational models, which operated in stark contrast to a typical bureaucracy. Owing to their transient nature, policy learning opportunities brought about by ad hoc groups, have received little attention in public policy literature. Our new article in Policy and Politics presents insights from an exploratory study to understand the diverse institutional roles played by ad hoc groups deployed during crisis.  

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