By: Amanda Porter
Thus far, in their explanation of public policy processes and in this week’s topic “Policy Formulation and Agenda Setting” Howlett, Ramesh and Perl have largely followed the same explanatory framework—begin with the origins of public policy models, focused on the objective and positivist literature then move onto post-positivist models and touch on the historically newer models and iterations that both critique and build on the positivist and post positivist trends. These models also seem to be separated by the more theoretical and descriptive older models, while the newer models often attempt a more empirical and testable explanation. In general, the models seem to start at more of a top down approach, with a focus on the economic and political factors and actors, then move towards incorporating social, ideological and sometimes group or community driven explanations of the policy process. Another common thread in the Howlett, Ramesh and Perl book is that these models exclusively emerge out of Western thought and literature and many of the models seem to be specifically oriented to public policy making in the United States. While there are many available critiques regarding the way these models engage in a complex issue like agenda setting and as Mammotsa Makhene points out in her post, do not necessarily capture the dynamic and evolving nature of agenda setting the policy process; I argue that these models fall apart even further when applied to the social, ideological, economic, historical and political context of a country in the Global South, like Uganda.
It stands to reason that a scholar or group of scholars would build their models based on the policy arena, history and society that they are familiar with. Even the most abstract of model is grounded in knowledge of systems, institutions, economic and political factors etc. However, these models rarely, if ever give attention to policy making in the international context. Does agenda setting in the United States not have an effect on Mexico or China? Do policy theorist not care about or just do not understand the different and important ways in which agenda setting may be different across countries and regions? This paper attempts to grapple with some of these issues by critiquing and situating these effectively Westernized models in the context of policy making and agenda setting in Uganda.
The Convergence Theory of the 1960’s that focused on the economy's role in agenda setting is an overly simplistic theory that paints agenda setting as a “virtually automatic process” which theorizes “as countries industrialize, they converge towards the same policy mix" (pg. 93). As a response to convergence theory, the Resource-Dependency Model emerged arguing that both political and economic factors influence agenda setting. This model focuses again on the example of industrialization and argues that this process creates a working class that poses political pressure and threats to a political system. Although the Convergence Theory and Resource Dependency Models actually both took into account cross-country research into their models, these studies were again focused on the United States and Europe. How would these models handle the very different process of industrialization and “modernization” of a post-colonial nation like Uganda? Both the models and the many critiques of the models ignore the historical context of the colonial legacy in industrialized countries and how this may affect agenda setting and, similarly, how countries whose path to development was certainly altered by the experience of colonization will not fit into these models and may need radically different models to explain or describe their policy making process.
In the Political Business Cycle argument, an offshoot of the Resource-Dependency Model, agenda setting is explained by applying the business cycle to public policy and according to the argument, “In democratic states, it followed that the nature of these [government] interventions could be predicted on the basis of the political ideology of the government party…and would depend on the proximity to elections” (pg 95). This model was, in fact, criticized on the basis that its application is limited to democratic countries and mainly the United States. Here we see some recognition of the Western and European ideology behind these models. In a country like Uganda that does have regular elections, but is a presidential republic, this model falls apart even further based on other important but unaccounted for factors like corruption, the silencing of opposition parties and government control over social media during the election season. Uganda held their most recent election in February 2016 and despite claims of ballot fraud, the incumbent candidate, Yoweri Museveni, who had been in power for over three decades won the election (Aljazeera, 2016). During the election, the opposition leader was placed under house arrest, protesters and opposition supporters were met with violence by government officials and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter were shut down by the government. As Makhene explains, blogs and social media have begun to play an important role in challenging traditional modes of agenda setting, when these are silenced, so too is one of the informal ways of agenda setting.
Another point neglected by these models is related to the question: What happens when international institutions have a heavy influence on agenda setting and the policy process within a sovereign country? For example, in Uganda the World Bank has had a heavy hand in setting the policy agenda, especially in terms of economic policies in the last several decades. The World Bank has also had a strong influence around issues like development induced displacement with the arguably detrimental effects. When policy is crafted in the West is mapped onto a country with different and very complex system of land rights and ownership laws, there are bound to be negative unintended consequences. These issues are not relegated to Uganda as many countries in the Global South have a very different experience with democratic elections than those envisioned in the United States. In addition, many countries outside the OECD countries, like those in Latin America, have been effected by the imposed policies of the World Bank. Widespread (and now widely contested) policies like structural adjustment have been imposed on developing economies and political systems. In many cases these policy agendas have been set by powerful Western dominated international institutions and adopted by counties in a way that is not compatible with their social, political and historical reality.
As the models and theories related to the policy process are created, critiqued, revised and even progressively re-worked, it may be helpful to take a more comprehensive look at the models; viewing them not only through the lens of the Western world, but seeing how they fit into policy making in the Global South and incorporating constrains or innovations from those countries into these frameworks. World economies, political systems and social networks are more connected than ever and policy agendas originating in one country often do have an effect (positive or negative) or influence on agendas and policies in other countries. Although the goal of these models was to focus on the United States, the reality today is that of a globalized world and it may be time to incorporate international considerations into the models, theories and policy studies. It seems that if the goal of these models and frameworks is to understand how the public policy process works, then the models should grapple with how it works in a variety of different countries and iterations.
Additional Sources:
Aljazeera. February 20, 2016. Uganda’s Museveni re-elected amid Controversy. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/uganda-museveni-elected-president-protests-160220130613164.html.
Howlett, Michael, M. Ramesh and Anthony Perl. Studying Public Policy: Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems, Oxford University Press, 2009 (3rd Edition).
Thus far, in their explanation of public policy processes and in this week’s topic “Policy Formulation and Agenda Setting” Howlett, Ramesh and Perl have largely followed the same explanatory framework—begin with the origins of public policy models, focused on the objective and positivist literature then move onto post-positivist models and touch on the historically newer models and iterations that both critique and build on the positivist and post positivist trends. These models also seem to be separated by the more theoretical and descriptive older models, while the newer models often attempt a more empirical and testable explanation. In general, the models seem to start at more of a top down approach, with a focus on the economic and political factors and actors, then move towards incorporating social, ideological and sometimes group or community driven explanations of the policy process. Another common thread in the Howlett, Ramesh and Perl book is that these models exclusively emerge out of Western thought and literature and many of the models seem to be specifically oriented to public policy making in the United States. While there are many available critiques regarding the way these models engage in a complex issue like agenda setting and as Mammotsa Makhene points out in her post, do not necessarily capture the dynamic and evolving nature of agenda setting the policy process; I argue that these models fall apart even further when applied to the social, ideological, economic, historical and political context of a country in the Global South, like Uganda.
It stands to reason that a scholar or group of scholars would build their models based on the policy arena, history and society that they are familiar with. Even the most abstract of model is grounded in knowledge of systems, institutions, economic and political factors etc. However, these models rarely, if ever give attention to policy making in the international context. Does agenda setting in the United States not have an effect on Mexico or China? Do policy theorist not care about or just do not understand the different and important ways in which agenda setting may be different across countries and regions? This paper attempts to grapple with some of these issues by critiquing and situating these effectively Westernized models in the context of policy making and agenda setting in Uganda.
The Convergence Theory of the 1960’s that focused on the economy's role in agenda setting is an overly simplistic theory that paints agenda setting as a “virtually automatic process” which theorizes “as countries industrialize, they converge towards the same policy mix" (pg. 93). As a response to convergence theory, the Resource-Dependency Model emerged arguing that both political and economic factors influence agenda setting. This model focuses again on the example of industrialization and argues that this process creates a working class that poses political pressure and threats to a political system. Although the Convergence Theory and Resource Dependency Models actually both took into account cross-country research into their models, these studies were again focused on the United States and Europe. How would these models handle the very different process of industrialization and “modernization” of a post-colonial nation like Uganda? Both the models and the many critiques of the models ignore the historical context of the colonial legacy in industrialized countries and how this may affect agenda setting and, similarly, how countries whose path to development was certainly altered by the experience of colonization will not fit into these models and may need radically different models to explain or describe their policy making process.
In the Political Business Cycle argument, an offshoot of the Resource-Dependency Model, agenda setting is explained by applying the business cycle to public policy and according to the argument, “In democratic states, it followed that the nature of these [government] interventions could be predicted on the basis of the political ideology of the government party…and would depend on the proximity to elections” (pg 95). This model was, in fact, criticized on the basis that its application is limited to democratic countries and mainly the United States. Here we see some recognition of the Western and European ideology behind these models. In a country like Uganda that does have regular elections, but is a presidential republic, this model falls apart even further based on other important but unaccounted for factors like corruption, the silencing of opposition parties and government control over social media during the election season. Uganda held their most recent election in February 2016 and despite claims of ballot fraud, the incumbent candidate, Yoweri Museveni, who had been in power for over three decades won the election (Aljazeera, 2016). During the election, the opposition leader was placed under house arrest, protesters and opposition supporters were met with violence by government officials and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter were shut down by the government. As Makhene explains, blogs and social media have begun to play an important role in challenging traditional modes of agenda setting, when these are silenced, so too is one of the informal ways of agenda setting.
Another point neglected by these models is related to the question: What happens when international institutions have a heavy influence on agenda setting and the policy process within a sovereign country? For example, in Uganda the World Bank has had a heavy hand in setting the policy agenda, especially in terms of economic policies in the last several decades. The World Bank has also had a strong influence around issues like development induced displacement with the arguably detrimental effects. When policy is crafted in the West is mapped onto a country with different and very complex system of land rights and ownership laws, there are bound to be negative unintended consequences. These issues are not relegated to Uganda as many countries in the Global South have a very different experience with democratic elections than those envisioned in the United States. In addition, many countries outside the OECD countries, like those in Latin America, have been effected by the imposed policies of the World Bank. Widespread (and now widely contested) policies like structural adjustment have been imposed on developing economies and political systems. In many cases these policy agendas have been set by powerful Western dominated international institutions and adopted by counties in a way that is not compatible with their social, political and historical reality.
As the models and theories related to the policy process are created, critiqued, revised and even progressively re-worked, it may be helpful to take a more comprehensive look at the models; viewing them not only through the lens of the Western world, but seeing how they fit into policy making in the Global South and incorporating constrains or innovations from those countries into these frameworks. World economies, political systems and social networks are more connected than ever and policy agendas originating in one country often do have an effect (positive or negative) or influence on agendas and policies in other countries. Although the goal of these models was to focus on the United States, the reality today is that of a globalized world and it may be time to incorporate international considerations into the models, theories and policy studies. It seems that if the goal of these models and frameworks is to understand how the public policy process works, then the models should grapple with how it works in a variety of different countries and iterations.
Additional Sources:
Aljazeera. February 20, 2016. Uganda’s Museveni re-elected amid Controversy. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/uganda-museveni-elected-president-protests-160220130613164.html.
Howlett, Michael, M. Ramesh and Anthony Perl. Studying Public Policy: Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems, Oxford University Press, 2009 (3rd Edition).