ABSTRACT
The chapter examines concepts such as policy accidents, errors, mistakes and anomalies found in the existing policy literature on the subject but argues that recent work by McConnell and his colleague operationalizing three key aspects of policy failures – political failure, programme failure and process failure – and how they can be corrected, is of more use in understanding the content and direction of lessons drawn in the policymaking process. More specifically, it points to the significant and underappreciated roles played by process and political failure and the need to draw lessons in these areas if the prospects of policy success are to be enhanced. The chapter develops the ideas of “shallow” (technical-strategic) and “deep” (political-experiential) policy learning and discusses their relation to the avoidance of certain kinds of policy outcomes, especially policy failure.
