This project will develop an analysis of renewable energy technology policy focusing on the-role of ideas and institutional learning as the analytical framework for understanding policy changes.-As scholars have given ideas increasing analytical priority in understanding public policy, they have not-excluded the more traditional explanations for policy such as interests and institutions. Instead,-they have looked at the interaction of ideas, interests, and institutions. In earlier work, the PI has-analyzed the ways in which ideas become institutionalized over time and how policy advocates-compete to institutionalize their ideas. If ideas are important, the ways in which institutions change their ideas must-also be important. The analytical lens of institutional learning is one means for examining those changes.- This study will use institutional learning to link the ideas and technological knowledge debated within the-policy community to the changes in policies and the explanations that senior officials give for those-changes. To analyze the extent of institutional learning and its possible sources, the study will utilize two-important theoretical strategies. First, it will examine the ways that institutions can manifest learning-beyond individual learning by key officials; for example, changes in rules, procedures, or-institutional structures can constitute institutional learning. Second, the study will incorporate insights from-the social studies of technology by using a complex notion of technological knowledge, seeing it not only-as an instrumentality but as a complex mixture of empirical and normative claims.- A longitudinal case study of renewable energy policy is apt for theoretical and pragmatic-reasons. Changes in energy policy are themselves important and will become more so in the coming-years. In addition, renewable energy policy is part of a class of technology policies that are concerned with encouraging the creation of future technological systems. These policies are of theoretical importance because of the profound uncertainties that such efforts entail. The more pervasive the-uncertainty, the stronger the role for ideas, especially normative ones, in influencing policy actors and-outcomes. Pragmatically, these future-oriented policies are important because, through them,-governments try to achieve broad social goals and influence the direction of industry.- This study will examine renewable energy policy from 1977 to the present through an analysis of-government documents and archives, as well as the relevant policy literature. The analysis will proceed by-extracting the ideas that have guided policy by looking at the narratives, symbols, metaphors, and other-ways in which officials have explained their policies and framed the policy issues. The analysis will also-link these ideas up with those that are found in the professional literature of the time and examine the-linkages between external policy analysts and policy makers.- The results of this work will be three-fold. It will develop a better understanding of-renewable energy policy and recommendations for where that policy should go in the future, and a framework that will facilitate the analysis of the broad class of future oriented technology-policies. Third, it will enable scholars and policy makers to understand better the barriers to institutional-learning in technological areas and, therefore, to develop more effective policies.
