This article surveys the role of learning as mechanism of policy diffusion in the context of the creation of a new political order. The author discusses policy learning against the background of recent research on the diffusion of deregulatory and regulatory policies and attempts to distinguish learning from other mechanisms of diffusion. She then surveys the challenges entailed in testing this mechanism and sets out her particular approach: a rational version of learning. She also reports the results of preliminary efforts to test learning as applied to the diffusion of regulatory policies. The author concludes that learning cannot be rejected as a plausible mechanism of the diffusion of policies, although it shares its explanatory role with less rational mechanisms of diffusion, in particular policy emulation. Further research and analysis is needed to test learning in either its rational or its bounded version and, in doing so, to delve into the politics of learning.

In this paper, I enquire whether 37 governments in industrial and in Latin American countries privatised as a result of learning from experience. Using a rational updating model, I examine whether the decision in the 1980s and 1990s to streamline the public sector was the outcome of a revision of beliefs about the effectiveness of privatisation or whether, alternatively, it was triggered by international pressures or mimicry. The results suggest that rational learning and especially emulation were two important factors in the decision to privatise. International pressures, here proxied by the presence or absence of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund and by European Union membership, are irrelevant to explanations of the decision to privatise. Finally, domestic political conditions appear relevant to the decision to launch privatisation but only when the analysis is carried out for each of the regional sub-samples. In the OECD countries, centre-left governments were more likely to privatise whereas in Latin American more repressive regimes were more willing to divest.

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In political science, rational learning and bounded learning are commonly studied as two opposing theories of policy choice. In this paper, I use a rational-learning approach to reach conclusions about bounded learning, showing that the two theories are not necessarily incompatible. By examining a rational-learning model and the decisions of a set of developing countries to open up their trade regimes, I show that countries are particularly influenced by the choices of neighbouring countries and by particularly successful policy experiences. These are two typical contentions of the bounded-learning literature. I argue that bounded learning and rational learning yield the same results as soon as one drops the rational-learning assumption that there are zero costs to gathering new information. I use the discussion on rational learning versus bounded learning as a basis for exploring more general issues concerning the diffusion of policy innovations. RESUMENEn ciencia política, el aprendizaje racional y el aprendizaje limitado son comúnmente estudiados como teorías opuestas. En este artículo utilizo el abordaje de aprendizaje racional para llegar a conclusiones acerca del aprendizaje limitado, demostrando que las dos teorías no son necesariamente incompatibles. A través del examen de un modelo de aprendizaje racional y de las decisiones de un conjunto de países en desarrollo de abrir sus regímenes comerciales, demuestro que los países son particularmente influidos por las elecciones de países vecinos y por experiencias de políticas particularmente exitosas. Estos son dos argumentos típicos de la literatura sobre el aprendizaje limitado. Sostengo que el aprendizaje limitado y el aprendizaje racional arrojan los mismos resultados tan pronto como se abandona el supuesto del aprendizaje racional de que la recolección de nueva información tiene costo cero. Utilizo la discusión sobre aprendizaje racional versus aprendizaje limitado como base para explorar temas más generales acerca de la difusión de innovaciones de políticas.

Do remittances stabilize autocracies? Remittances—money sent by foreign workers to individuals in their home country—differ from other sources of external non‐tax revenue, such as foreign aid, because they accrue directly to individuals and thus raise the incomes of households. We argue that remittances increase the likelihood of democratic transition by undermining electoral support for autocratic incumbents in party‐based regimes. Remittances therefore make voters less dependent on state transfers. As a result, autocracies that rely heavily on the broad‐based distribution of spoils for their survival, namely party‐based regimes, should prove especially vulnerable to increases in remittances. Evidence consistent with this argument suggests that remittances promote democratization in some dictatorships.