ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to clear away the definitional underbrush that threatens to obscure common themes running through the case studies of US and Soviet learning in a wide range of policy arenas. Different investigators use the term learning in different—sometimes downright incompatible— ways. The chapter discusses five usages: the neorealist approach to learning; the belief system approach; the cognitive structural approach; the organizational and political cultural approach and the efficiency conception of learning. It focuses on four structural dimensions of belief systems of special relevance to learning in foreign policy. There are: the cognitive complexity of the idea elements within a belief system, the evaluative complexity of the idea elements, the degree of interrelatedness or integration among idea elements, and the capacity for self-reflection or metacognition. Many claims about the occurrence or nonoccurrence of learning ultimately rest on inferences about what policy makers thought from what policy makers have said.
