James G. March, Johan P. Olsen, Democratic Governance, The Free Press, New York P. 183 - 240

Chapter 6: Devloping Political Adaptiveness

Is it possible to build political institutions that civilize transformational political change and achieve intelligence through learning?

Adaptiveness in Political Systems

Punctuated Equilibrium

Internal Dynamics

Co-evolution of Environments and Institutions

Democratic Factors in Adaptiveness

Profiting from experience

The pursuit of intelligent change

Political institutions must cope with three grand problems of intlligence:

1. Ignorance (uncertainties about the future)

2. Conflict (with identities and interests)

3. Ambiguity

Anticipatory human action is based on anticipation of consequences and anticipation of the values associated with those consequences when they are achieved. But it is considered flawed as too many atrocities are commited under such assumptions.

Now people have shifted to "learning from experience".

Experiential Learning Processes

It modifies behavior as a result of inferences drawn from the consequences of previous behavior. It involves three classic steps of adaptation -- variation through experimentation and risk-taking, selection through forming inferences from experience and translating them into action, and retention through routinizing action implication into rules that can be passed on to others.

Variation and Selection

Learning requires big steps taken infrequently. Success and failure are socially constructed.

Selection and Inferences from Experience

Retention in Rules and Accounts

Complications in Experiential Learning

First, orgs need the capability to experiment, often limited by needs for consistency and accoutability. They suffer from their riskiness and low expected value.

The need the capability to generate inferences about outcomes.

The need to act on the basis of knowledge.

The capability to retain knowledge.

Biased Samples

Undersampling Failures (and Self-Confirmation of Success)

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Governing Adaptiveness

Facilitating Experimentation

Aligning Motivations

Role of Incentives

Role of Accountability

Role of Aspirations

Slowing Learning

Role of Ignoratnce

Role of Ideology

Role of Turnover

Facilitating Knowledge

Improving Patience (to increase sample size)

Improving Accounts

Improving Memory

Improving Learning From Others