Policy Learning in Greece and Southern Europe

We are interested in the black box of the state. Vagionaki opens it up and allows us to peek inside.

Miguel Centeno, Princeton University, USA

This valuable volume explores an overlooked aspect of policy dynamics – when learning is absent or obstructed. Through comparative analyses of three southern European countries facing major policy challenges, Dr Vagionaki highlights the contextual and contingent nature of knowledge use and non-use in policymaking. Essential reading for scholars and practitioners alike, this book earns a top spot on my reading list.

Claire A. Dunlop, University of Exeter, UK

With admirable clarity, Thenia Vagionaki analyzes the conditions under which public administrators, policymakers and governments learn or fail to learn. Constructing a powerful theoretical framework, she masterfully reveals the institutional and political factors contributing to and discouraging multilevel learning in three European Union member-states—Greece, Italy and Spain. Her ideas about when, why and where learning will occur, however, travel far beyond these cases.

Christopher Ansell, University of California, Berkeley, USA

This research monograph provides an insightful and compelling analysis of policy learning. It is a must-read for public policy scholars, policymakers, and anyone seeking to better understand the challenges and opportunities surrounding EU integration and policymaking in a rapidly changing Europe.

Martino Maggetti, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

This book explores the challenges that policymakers and organizations encounter when attempting to learn from policies and ideas implemented in other contexts and countries. In doing so, it not only highlights the importance of policy learning as a tool of contemporary policymaking, but shows the divergent ways in which agents learn. Drawing on empirical evidence from Greece, Spain and Italy in the context of EU soft law instruments such as the Open Method of Coordination and the European Semester, the book demonstrates how administrative, political and institutional conditions can act as obstacles towards policy learning. It will appeal to scholars of public policy and public administration, as well as to practitioners interested in understanding the mechanisms behind policy learning.

Thenia Vagionaki is a Research Fellow at Princeton University, USA. Her work has previously been published in the Journal of European Public Policy, International Review of Public Policy, Political Studies Review, West European Politics, and Policy & Politics.