| Abstract: | Utilizing over 100 interviews conducted with Greek political and military elites, this article offers a refinement of the process of political learning, believed to contribute to democratic consolidation by modifying individuals' beliefs about political goals and the best means to achieve them. Using the Greek case as an empirical test, this study confirms the democratization literature's claim that elites learn from singular catastrophic events. It offers a refinement, however, of specific lessons and the related behavioural change. Moving beyond the main conclusions of that literature, the article argues that learning can arise in a variety of ways and from varied experiences. Inductive trial-and-error learning stimulated by success can also play a key role as can slow and cumulative learning, which results from the accumulation of both positive and negative lessons, and can proceed in a two-step process of instrumental learning first, followed by more principled learning later. Learning thus sometimes takes a tangled course: elites take tentative steps, implement small policy changes, observe the effects of their actions, and learn from them as lessons accumulate, interact and slowly reinforce each other. Finally, learning does not always guarantee moderation and the adoption of democratic attitudes, tactics, and policies. As the article illustrates, the political learning process is often best characterized as highly contingent and complex. |
