ABSTRACT
Since the mid-1990s, the role of “belief systems,” “frames,” “ideas,” “narratives,” “paradigms,” “schemata,” or “knowledge” – and of communicative processes, the exchange of arguments, and learning – has received increasing attention in a number of political science sub-disciplines grappling with the explanation of political decisions, outcomes, and change.1 This chapter provides an overview of the cognitive turn in political science and locates the analytical framework of the Governance for Sustainability project within it. First, the discovery of knowledge by rational choice theorists and institutionalists is contrasted with a constructivist perspective. The link between ideas and the concepts of knowledge forms, hegemony, and discursive dominance is explored in the next two sections. In the remaining two sections of the chapter, we discuss the relationship between learning and knowledge forms.
