Unpacking the political cultural psychology in public policy administration

This past week has been filled with epiphanies that led to a rethought of popular subscribed ideologies. Allow me to start with rooting of the thinking here. Popular movements have often succeeded or otherwise largely because of who backs them up, and how much of a crowd puller that person is. That epiphany advanced from how the obviously devious Hitler, being a charismatic character, managed to convince the majority in Germany at that time that to massacre the Jews was the super answer to their national problems. While that thought was still building ground, I found myself thinking of the popular ideologies and concepts that may seem noble today, and pondered on one sticky question. Do we (as a people), adhere to those thinking points because we logically have falsified any otherwise thinking or it is simply because the significant other said it is right and we bought into it. Let us start our premise with the understanding that no individual embodies the truth, but together we may get nearer.

The sad implication of the psychology embedded in such 'shortcut party identification' is that it is extended to public policy resolutions that tend to dent the democracy we so much want to adhere to. A good question that should be asked to anyone who supports any public policy idea should be, where do you identify yourself in that bigger skim, how does it benefit you? Most importantly, this level begs you to suspend any ideas and opinions you may have on the subject to logically think on its terms before you can adopt a side. When, as a people, we advance from that thinking, that's only when we can harvest the good that democratic societies promise.

Moreover, the irking problem is how the said thinking tend to justify mediocrity. It is often taken to be true what the significant other says about any idea to the extent that the hearer does not bother falsifying it in an attempt to get closer to the truth. Shortcut party identification manifests itself more in-group thinking. This I say cognizant of the fact that factions and interests (read, political parties) are in themselves an opinion of the people. The people often being one proton of the subsect of that which I choose to call factions and interests. The rest become rehearsed thinkers in the broader skim of thinking points. This point should be read with full knowledge of the power of people (outside the 'proton') in that bigger faction and/or interest group – this is manifested by their nod of aligning to the thinking of the proton when they vote 'yes'.

The few dotted thinkers among the people who may have dissenting opinions from the significant other tend to be supressed. In the process, that creates cracks in intra-fraction/interest groups. While the faction/interest group would love to theoretically romanticize the hierarchy to thinking that everyone is allowed an opinion, it has been systematically encultured into the daily routines to the extent that it sometimes is called protocol. It perhaps would be succinct to note that protocol in practice says 'listen but don't question', any act of questioning despite the legitimacy of the concern is rendered breach of protocol.

As it is known that political institutions do not behave in a certain way, it is true that individuals in those political institutions cause those institutions to behave in the manner that they operate. The above wisdom unpacked the asymmetrical intra-party policy participation dynamics; it is therefore crucial to graduate the implications of those effects to inter-party policy formulation dynamics in Zimbabwe. The hierachisation of policy opinion in a multi-party democracy has contributed much to the nature of policies pursued by any government. Policies that emerge from higher regions of power concentration are adopted to be true not because they are good but because of where they originate. In the same manner, policy opinions from regions of lower power concentration are overlooked not because they are weak but because the authority advancing them does not have the capability to fervently introduce them into the policymaking box.

In a multi-party democracy, actors usually neglect the nature of human beings and how their lived experiences determine policy opinions. In Zimbabwe, a lot of factors contribute to public policy formulation, our multi-party democracy is not founded on difference of opinion alone. However, it is also entrenched in historical differences which are sometimes recipes for hatred for the other parties.  A moment of digression, in the house of assembly where most policy discussions take place, legislators from the opposition do not always dismiss opinions from legislators from the ruling party on the basis that those opinions are wrong but because of the narrow acceptance of the word "oppose". Consequentially, legitimate policy initiatives that emanate from diverse groups of people are uncritically dismissed, hence creating policy gaps from which those groups fall.

The same dilemma of provincially dismissing policies because of the mover is still true even from the ruling party. When individuals outside the ruling party raise policy opinions, individuals in the ruling party uncritically assume that every suggestion from a member of opposition is targeting to unseat them from power; hence, the preferred response is a political one to crush all those dissenting opinions since they would have been deemed to be elements of political insurgency. This given scenario plays a critical role in determining the scope of our national policies; policies that succeed are thereby not holistic since some opinions that reflect a people are deliberately overlooked for political reasons. It is logical to then conclude that most of what we think of as national policies are really merely policies for the proton within and amongst fractions/interest groups. A formidable understanding of national policies is that they should be a result of the collective, after convincing individuals even out
side your faction/interest group. While pursuing party selfish policy interests may be justified, in pursuit of that, the process should not be at the expense of the people, even those outside the active faction/interest groups.

The mantra of a multi-party democracy system in policy formulation is to collect every opinion that resembles a group of people, after the process of collecting; those opinions in their diversity must be conglomerated to form a rational and all-inclusive policy structure. If every human being is allowed to pursue their individual interests within the scope of our legal framework, individuals of similar interests are most likely to end up in the same groups.

Feedback can be sent to pofela@abakhokheli.org cc tedious@abakhokheli.org
Pofela Ndzozi is a communication specialist, with Leaders for Africa Network as the Communication and Advocacy Officer.  
Tedious Ncube is a Political Science and Public Management Researcher with Leaders for Africa Network