Governance as Learning

Programme group Political Economy and Transnational Governance (PETGOV)

The key question of this NWO funded research programme is whether these shifting governance arrangements, horizontally through power- and policy-sharing agreements with social partners and vertically through international arrangements based on mutual monitoring, peer review, benchmarking and the use of ‘soft' law, contribute to social learning and reform-convergence.

Funded by NWO/MAGW/Shifts in Governance

European welfare states and labour markets are in need of reform. Reform processes involve non-hierarchical co-operation and coordination among different (private and public) actors across different (inter)national levels of governance.

Our key objective is to identify mechanisms of social learning in (inter)national politics and to specify the conditions under which such mechanism are used and operate as effective causes of policy change.

The innovative element(s) of the program are found in the combination of disparate theories from organisation science, corporatism, network theory, comparative politics and policy analysis, and open the ‘black box' of cognitive and normative actor-orientations in politics and policy.

The research programme integrates various disciplines (sociology, psychology, labour economics, political science, public administration and international relations/European studies).

How social learning can contribute to governance of European and of welfare state change is a core question of the Shift of Governance programme, and addresses central issues of sustainability, support, and legitimacy of the European project and the European social model.

Supervision 

• Prof.dr. J. Visser (UvA) 
• Dr. A. Hemerijck (WRR) 
• Prof.dr. B. Kittel (University Oldenburg, Germany) 
• Dr. M. van der Meer (UvA) 
• Prof.dr. J. Zeitlin (University of Madison-Wisconsin, U.S.A.)

Researchers 

• Bart Vanhercke (PhD student UvA) 
• Nynke Wiekenkamp (PhD student UvA)

Published by  AISSR

27 June 2013