Abstract:

Understanding public policy change is a central topic in policy process research. Classical explanations such as multiple streams theory, intermittent equilibrium theory, and the advocacy coalition framework are well-known. But the mechanism of crisis learning for public policy change from the perspective of knowledge management has been relatively neglected. Based on the case of “Complete Fasting for Wild Animals”, this study proposed an explanatory path of crisis learning for public policy change. It was found that: (1) the “activation mechanism” triggered by the focal event opens a “window of opportunity” for crisis learning, which promotes knowledge production in the crisis situation and constitutes the starting condition for policy change. (2) The “evolution mechanism” in the field of discursive competition, which presents different discursive narratives and social construction, is essentially a kind of knowledge competition that can realize the redefinition of policy issues. (3) The “feedback mechanism” under the leadership’s attention can prompt the transformation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge and promote the transformation of empirical cognitive judgments into institutionalized policy norms. The crisis learning process framework of “knowledge production-knowledge competition-knowledge transformation” reveals more of the black-box mechanism of crisis learning to promote policy change. This enriches the explanatory map of public policy change, but also further expands the research boundary of crisis learning.

Key words: crisis learning, policy change, knowledge management, punctuated equilibrium, complete fasting for wild animals