Knowledge and non-knowledge in the liberalization of Belgian network industries: The role of information, egocentrism and self-esteem in policy learning

Policy learning is the mechanism through which actors involved in a policy subsystem revise their beliefs and preferences toward a policy over time – a crucial dynamic of stability or change of public policies. While the social dimension of this dynamic has been extensively researched, the individual psychology of policy learning remains a black box. Yet, this is a key missing link between policy learning and settings or practices that could model it. This paper addresses this research program by looking at two mental constructs susceptible to encourage policy actors to stick to their own poin... Mehr ...