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Social Networks and the Challenge of Learning for Sustainability: The Case of Regional Planning

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dc.contributor.author Henry, Adam Douglas en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2009-07-31T14:36:35Z
dc.date.available 2009-07-31T14:36:35Z
dc.date.issued 2008 en_US
dc.date.submitted 2008-10-28 en_US
dc.date.submitted 2008-10-28 en_US
dc.identifier.uri https://hdl.handle.net/10535/1408
dc.description.abstract "Environmental problems usually involve emerging and uncertain information that must be successfully assimilated ('learned') by decision-making communities to have a consequent impact on policy. Despite the importance of successful learning, it tends to be very difficult to alter the beliefs of stakeholders involved in technically complex and ideologically divisive policy arenas. One theory of the policy process, called the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), offers a potential explanation that focuses on the interactions between beliefs, bias, and the emergence of social networks. In particular, the ACF hypothesizes that cognitive biases tend to polarize policy-relevant belief systems. The result is that policy network structures tend to coalesce and self-reinforce around shared ideologies, exacerbating political conflict and making the efficient use of scientific information difficult. Collaborative institutions are hypothesized to attenuate this effect, by providing a forum for meaningful deliberation across competing ideologies and interests. Empirical data used in testing these hypotheses are collected, via online survey, from policy elites in five regional land use and transportation planning processes in California (N = 752). Hypotheses are tested using a variety of network analytic techniques to identify signatures of network growth processes as a result of biased learning. The results lend some support for the ACF view of policy learning, but also suggest that the role of bias is highly context dependent. Future work in the area should pay close attention to the differential role that various types of beliefs play in learning and the formation of policy networks." en_US
dc.subject planning en_US
dc.subject sustainability en_US
dc.subject social networks en_US
dc.subject decision making en_US
dc.subject IASC en_US
dc.title Social Networks and the Challenge of Learning for Sustainability: The Case of Regional Planning en_US
dc.type Conference Paper en_US
dc.subject.sector Social Organization en_US
dc.identifier.citationmonth July en_US
dc.identifier.citationconference Governing Shared Resources: Connecting Local Experience to Global Challenges, the Twelfth Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Commons en_US
dc.identifier.citationconfdates July 14-18, 2008 en_US
dc.identifier.citationconfloc Cheltenham, England en_US
dc.submitter.email elsa_jin@yahoo.com en_US


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