ReInterpreting Bounded Rationality: Examining How and Why Local Authorities Share Learning

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(Re)Interpreting Bounded Rationality Examining
How and Why Local Authorities Share Learning

• Tessa Brannan
• Institute for Political and Economic Governance
  (IPEG)

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Learning from Others In Search of a Theory

• Popular and political appeal of learning from
  others a commonsense approach
• Lack of critical analysis
• Existing theory inadequate and fragmented
• Implicit adherence to traditional rational model
  of policy making linear and systematic
• Based on rationalist assumptions about
  identification of success, transferability, and
  implementation
• Bounded rationality to the rescue?

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Bounded Rationality A Re-interpretation (1)

• Beyond a revised version of rational choice
  theory
• Intended rationality the interaction between
  environmental complexity and human cognition
• Decision makers as information processors
  cognitive constraints
• Frames of reference interpretation and
  incorporation
• The interpretive basis of BR

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Bounded Rationality A Re-interpretation (2)

• Beyond a normative adherence to rationality
• Strategies to aid decision-making which both
  reflect and seek to overcome constraints
• Delimiting the range of alternatives
  simplification and filtering
• Sequential searching and consideration
• Satisficing ceasing search at aspiration
  level
• Decision rules / heuristics simple rules of
  thumb, empirically derived shortcuts

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Learning from Others A BR Perspective

• BR the potential to integrate literatures,
  elements, rationales, and processes of sharing
  learning
• Answering the why question
• Learning from others as a sub-optimal shortcut
  in policy making time, risk, and resources
• Understanding irrational behaviours
  identifying subjective rationales and
  perspectives
• Incentives, symbolism, conformity

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Strategies for Learning from Others

• Answering the how question
• Identifying lessons simplification, selection,
  and attention allocation
• Shortcuts availability, representation/
  social cueing, attachment to means, proxy
  indicators
• Biases and errors a pessimistic approach
• Simons optimistic approach identifying the
  benefits of shortcuts and tools

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Developing BR An Interpretive Approach to
Learning

• Learning as the process by which existing frames
  of reference are altered (or maintained) in
  response to new information
• Interpretation, framing and re-framing the
  relationship between elements, agents, and
  information
• Information / communication theory producers,
  senders, facilitators, and receivers
• Reader-response theory

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The Learning Change Relationship

• A BR approach to change inevitable
  incrementalism and path dependence?
• Punctuated equilibrium and attention allocation
• Implications for learning from others seeking
  similarity or re-interpreting difference
• What prospects for more radical change?
• Interaction and the development of shared
  meanings dialectical consensus or imposition
• Issues of power and relationships

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Models and Mechanisms of Sharing Learning

• Different means gt different rationales,
  processes, and relationships gt different scope
  for learning and change
• Models Beacon Scheme versus learning network
• Mechanisms more or less interactive
• Exploring the rationales and processes of sharing
  learning using BR
• Interpretive BR straddling the divide between
  rationalism and interpretivism?