Facilitating network (inter-organizational) learning: a relativist/pragmatist perspective on participatory policy analysis

In today’s network society policy analysis is more and more implemented by means of participatory approaches and methods. This is induced by the fact that power and knowledge are widely distributed among various groups of network actors (stakeholders). The network characteristics of our (western) societies (Castells, 1996) more or less force us to look at policy analysis from a more relativist – pragmatist perspective. In this paper we want to investigate in the role of participatory policy analysis in a multi-actor, network environment and the learning processes that emerge from that. To do so, we will subsequently elaborate on the following components of our narrative that is largely framed by the philosophy of relativism. First we discuss the characteristics of the network society and their implications for policy oriented research, such as participatory policy analysis. Second we go into the concept of policy analysis and participatory policy. Third we look at the concept learning itself by elaborating on definitions of learning and on the specific type of learning that emerges in participatory policy analysis: policy oriented learning. Fourth we link up the characteristics of the network society as social environment to the concept of learning by considering the concept of situated cognition (Bredo, 1994; Elkjaer, 1999). And fifth, we apply this concept to a case study on spatial planning issues in which participatory policy analysis was implemented in a (local) network environment, leading to learning processes between the stakeholders involved.