Institutional Learning and Technological Knowledge in Renewable Energy Policy

该项目将对可再生能源技术政策进行分析，重点放在思想和制度学习的作用上，作为理解政策变化的分析框架。-由于学者们在理解公共政策时给予了越来越多的分析优先地位的想法，他们没有-排除对政策的更传统的解释，如利益和制度。相反，他们关注的是思想、利益和制度之间的互动。在早期的工作中，PI分析了想法随着时间的推移变得制度化的方式，以及政策倡导者如何竞争将他们的想法制度化。如果想法很重要，那么机构改变想法的方式也一定很重要。制度学习的分析视角是检查这些变化的一种手段。-这项研究将利用制度学习将政策界内辩论的思想和技术知识与政策变化和高级官员对这些变化的解释联系起来。为了分析机构学习的程度及其可能的来源，本研究将利用两个重要的理论策略。首先，它将审查机构可以通过哪些方式表现学习--除了主要官员的个人学习之外；例如，规则、程序或机构结构的变化可以构成机构学习。其次，这项研究将纳入对技术的社会研究的见解--通过使用复杂的技术知识概念，不仅将其视为一种工具，而且将其视为经验性和规范性主张的复杂混合体。-可再生能源政策的纵向案例研究适合于理论和实用的原因。能源政策的变化本身很重要，而且在未来几年将变得更加重要。此外，可再生能源政策是一类技术政策的一部分，这些政策涉及鼓励创造未来的技术系统。这些政策具有重要的理论意义，因为这些努力带来了深刻的不确定性。不确定性越普遍，想法，尤其是规范性想法，在影响政策参与者和结果方面的作用就越强。实际上，这些面向未来的政策很重要，因为政府试图通过它们实现广泛的社会目标并影响工业的方向。这项研究将通过对政府文件和档案以及相关政策文献的分析，审查从1977年到现在的可再生能源政策。分析将通过观察叙事、象征、隐喻和其他方式来提取指导政策的想法-官员们解释他们的政策和框架政策问题的方式。分析还将把这些想法与当时专业文献中的想法联系起来，并审查外部政策分析师和政策制定者之间的联系。这项工作的结果将是三个方面的。它将更好地理解可再生能源政策，并就该政策今后的方向提出建议，并建立一个框架，以促进对面向未来的广泛技术政策的分析。第三，它将使学者和政策制定者能够更好地了解技术领域机构学习的障碍，从而制定更有效的政策。

This project will develop an analysis of renewable energy technology policy focusing on the-role of ideas and institutional learning as the analytical framework for understanding policy changes.-As scholars have given ideas increasing analytical priority in understanding public policy, they have not-excluded the more traditional explanations for policy such as interests and institutions. Instead,-they have looked at the interaction of ideas, interests, and institutions. In earlier work, the PI has-analyzed the ways in which ideas become institutionalized over time and how policy advocates-compete to institutionalize their ideas. If ideas are important, the ways in which institutions change their ideas must-also be important. The analytical lens of institutional learning is one means for examining those changes.- This study will use institutional learning to link the ideas and technological knowledge debated within the-policy community to the changes in policies and the explanations that senior officials give for those-changes. To analyze the extent of institutional learning and its possible sources, the study will utilize two-important theoretical strategies. First, it will examine the ways that institutions can manifest learning-beyond individual learning by key officials; for example, changes in rules, procedures, or-institutional structures can constitute institutional learning. Second, the study will incorporate insights from-the social studies of technology by using a complex notion of technological knowledge, seeing it not only-as an instrumentality but as a complex mixture of empirical and normative claims.- A longitudinal case study of renewable energy policy is apt for theoretical and pragmatic-reasons. Changes in energy policy are themselves important and will become more so in the coming-years. In addition, renewable energy policy is part of a class of technology policies that are concerned with encouraging the creation of future technological systems. These policies are of theoretical importance because of the profound uncertainties that such efforts entail. The more pervasive the-uncertainty, the stronger the role for ideas, especially normative ones, in influencing policy actors and-outcomes. Pragmatically, these future-oriented policies are important because, through them,-governments try to achieve broad social goals and influence the direction of industry.- This study will examine renewable energy policy from 1977 to the present through an analysis of-government documents and archives, as well as the relevant policy literature. The analysis will proceed by-extracting the ideas that have guided policy by looking at the narratives, symbols, metaphors, and other-ways in which officials have explained their policies and framed the policy issues. The analysis will also-link these ideas up with those that are found in the professional literature of the time and examine the-linkages between external policy analysts and policy makers.- The results of this work will be three-fold. It will develop a better understanding of-renewable energy policy and recommendations for where that policy should go in the future, and a framework that will facilitate the analysis of the broad class of future oriented technology-policies. Third, it will enable scholars and policy makers to understand better the barriers to institutional-learning in technological areas and, therefore, to develop more effective policies.