Policy learning is a common driver of reform in public organisations and relies in part on institutional legitimacy. For law enforcement, institutional legitimacy is particularly salient given the police’s monopoly on the legal use of force. This study uses the concept of policy learning to analyse power and reform in policing amidst civil unrest. Examining public protests in Iran, the study finds that flaws in management structures and protocols compromise the legitimacy of the police and weaken its organisational learning capacity. The analytical lens – learning loops – illustrates how and why organisational learning processes are disrupted. Findings show that first-loop or superficial learning dominates reform processes within the Iranian police, weakening understandings of societal context and compromising organisational effectiveness. The study contributes an empirical case of an understudied country context to literature about policy learning, institutional legitimacy, and public organisational reform.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10439463.2024.2429723

Sajadi, Hamid and Hartley, Kris. (2024). “The Mediating Role of Societal Context in Translating Policy Learning into Policy Change: The Case of Iranian Police.” Policing and Society.