Tom Dietz

Assistant vice president for environmental research; Director of Environmental Science and Policy Program

Symposium: How Can Social Learning Move Us Toward Sustainability?

A 90-minute discussion of three social learning models, led and organized by Dietz.

When: 1:45-3:15 p.m. Sunday, February 17

Synopsis: The application of science and technology to global problems of sustainability and risk require experimentation and social learning. Discussions of adaptive management, commons governance, and the use of assessments to synthesize science are underpinned by the assumption that social learning will hone the ability to understand coupled human and natural systems and make wiser choices. This symposium examines the three most important traditions of research on social learning—the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) approach, and analytic deliberation—to assess what each can contribute to addressing global problems. ACF has been extensively used to study environmental policy, and IAD has been the dominant approach to examining governance of common property resources. Analytic deliberation was developed around problems of risk governance. The panel summarizes the state of the science in each of these lines of research and examines how they can contribute to enhanced social learning around key global problems.