Policy learning? Crisis, evidence and reinvention in the making of public policy

This article considers the role of evidence and prospects for collective deliberation in shaping policy and practice in straitened times. It draws on critical policy sociology to enhance existing perspectives on policy transfer. The article explores how 'new professionalism' in the public services intersects with the 'new localism' and current realities of public policy management. In recognising the limitations of presentism' in policy analysis, attention is afforded to the recuperation and selective reinvention of policy discourses deployed in previous systemic crises. In contrast to rational linear models of problem solving, alternative recursive deliberative approaches are suggested.