Rethinking Policy Learning in Urban Policy Mobility

Abstract

Since the ‘mobility turn’, urban researchers have made important contributions to our understanding of the contentious and relational nature of cross-border policy learning. Yet, seldom has extant research explored the contextual influence of local policymaking on the localization process of a traveling policy practice beyond the initial encounters of policy elites with its simplified narrative. To fill this gap, this article investigates the link between policy learning and policy outcome by disaggregating its complex interactive and iterative process into distinctive policy stages of urban policy mobility. The case of participatory budgeting in Vienna adds an empirical dimension to this approach. The findings reveal how multiple types of learned lessons, drawn from diverse sources of knowledge, become enmeshed, streamlined and articulated into the local formulation and implementation of an international ‘best practice’ in a context-bound policy space. It concludes by highlighting some analytical advantages of this policy-oriented approach for researching urban policy mobility and directions for future research.