1 - Theorising the Intersection of Public Policy and Personal Lives through the Lens of ‘Participation’
Corresponding Author(s) : Nana Akua Anyidoho
Africa Development,
Vol. 35 No. 3 (2010): Africa Development
Abstract
The continued interest in political economy-inspired perspectives on economic and social policies is an attempt to understand policymakers as human beings who are influenced by values, votes and other factors that were once thought to be exogenous to policy choices. However, there is still little theorising about those on the other side of the policy equation. This article seeks a better understanding of how ordinary people engage in a very personal way with policy.
I present a model of participation grounded in empirical research with members of a poverty-reduction project in Ghana, and a conceptual framework informed by an interpretive or sense-making approach to policy analysis. The model is based on the three principles of ‘subjectivity’, ‘temporality’ and ‘situatedness’: First, human beings make subjective interpretations of policy grounded in their life histories; secondly, temporality is an inherent aspect of how individuals cognitively organise their lives; and thirdly, people experience policy as one of many overlapping contexts in which they are situated.
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- Amanor, K., 2001, Land, Labour and the Family in Southern Ghana: A Critique of Land Policy under Neo-liberalisation, Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute.
- Anyidoho, N.A., 2005, Making Sense of Development Policy: A Study of a Poverty Reduction Project in the Afram Plains of Ghana, Unpublished PhD dissertation, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
- Anyidoho, N.A. ‘(forthcoming)’ Communities of Practice: Prospects for Theory and Action in Participatory Development.
- Ball, S., 1993, ‘What is Policy? Texts, Trajectories and Toolboxes’, in Discourse, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 9–17.
- Ball, S., 1994, Education Reform: A Critical Post-structural Approach, Buckingham: Open University Press.
- Bledsoe, C.H. and Banja, F., 2002, Contingent Lives: Fertility, Time, and Aging in West Africa, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Brock, K., Cornwall, A. and Gaventa, J., 2001, Power, Knowledge and Political Spaces in the Framing of Poverty Policy (IDS Working Paper No. 143), Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.
- Bronfenbrenner, U. and Morris, P.A., 1998, ‘The Ecology of Developmental Processes’, in W. Damon and R.M. Lerner, eds., Handbook of Child Psychology: Theoretical Models of Human Development, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- Buvinic, M., 1986, ‘Projects for Women in the Third World: Explaining their ""Misbehaviour""’, World Development, Vol. 14, No. 5.
- Chambers, R., 1983, Rural Development: Putting the Last First, Harlow: Longman.
- Chambers, R., 1997, Whose reality counts? Putting the first last, London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
- Cleaver, F., 1999, ‘Paradoxes of Participation: Questioning Participatory Approaches to Development’, Journal of International Development, Vol. 11, pp. 597-612.
- Cleaver, F., 2001, ‘Institutions, Agency and the Limitations of Participatory Approaches to Development’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny?, London: Zed Books.
- Coffey, A. and Atkinson, P., 1996, Making Sense of Qualitative Data: Complementary Research Strategies, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
- Cooke, B., 2001, ‘The Social Psychological Limits of Participation?’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny?, London: Zed Books.
- Cooke, B. and Kothari, U., 2001, ‘The Case for Participation as Tyranny’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny?, London: Zed Books.
- Cornwall, A., 1998, ‘Gender, Participation and the Politics of Difference’, in I. Guijt and M.K. Shah, eds., The Myth of Community: Gender Issues in Participatory Development, London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
- Cornwall, A., 2002, Making Spaces, Changing Places: Situating Participation in Development (IDS Working Paper No. 170), Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.
- Drake, C., 2001, ‘Stories and Stages: Teacher Development and Mathematics Education Reform’ (Doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, 2000), Dissertation Abstracts International, Vol. 61, 4273A.
- Francis, P., 2001, ‘Participatory Development at the World Bank: The Primacy of Process’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny? London: Zed Books.
- Guijt, I. and Shah, M.K., 1998, ‘Waking Up to Power, Conflict and Process’, in I. Guijt and M.K. Shah, eds., The Myth of Community: Gender Issues in Participatory Development, London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
- Hill, H.C., 2001, ‘Policy is Not Enough: Language and the Interpretation of State Standards’, American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 38, pp. 289-318.
- Kabeer, N., 1994, Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought, London: Verso.
- Kapoor, I., 2002, ‘The Devils in the Theory: A Critical Assessment of Robert Chambers' Work on Participatory Development’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 101-117.
- Kothari, U., 2001, ‘Power, Knowledge and Social Control in Participatory Development’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny? London: Zed Books.
- Levinson, B.A.U. and Sutton, M., 2001, ‘Introduction: Policy as/in Practice - A Sociocultural Approach to the Study of Educational Policy’, in M. Sutton and B.A.U. Levinson, eds., Policy as Practice: Toward a Comparative Sociocultural Analysis of Educational Policy, Stamford: Ablex Pub, (http:// www.ebrary.com). 25 April 2005.
- Lewis, D.A. and Maruna, S., 1999, ‘Person-centered Policy Analysis’, in S.S. Nagel, ed., Policy Analysis Methods, New York: Nova Science Publishers.
- Lin, A., 2000, Reform in the Making: The Implementation of Social Policy in Prison, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- Martinez-Flores, M., 2004, ‘The Intersection of Policy and Practice: Linking Teacher's Meaning to Actions’, Dissertation Abstracts International, Vol. 64, No. 7, 2329A.
- Maruna, S., 1998, ‘Redeeming One's Self: How Reformed Ex-offenders Make Sense of their Lives’ (Doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, 1998), Dissertation Abstracts International, Vol. 59, 4535A.
- McAdams, D.P., 1993, The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self, New York: Morrow.
- McAdams, D.P., 1995, ‘What do we Know when we Know a Person?’ in Journal of Psychology, Vol. 63, pp. 365-396.
- McAdams, D.P., 2001, The Person: An Integrated Introduction to Personality Psychology, 3rd edition, Orlando, FL.: Harcourt College Publishers.
- Mosse, D., 2001, ‘""People’s Knowledge"", Participation and Patronage: Operations and Representations in Rural Development’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny? London: Zed Books.
- Parfitt, T., 2004, ‘The Ambiguity of Participation: A Qualified Defence of Participatory Development’, in Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 537–556.
- Schroeder, R.A., 1999, Shady Practices: Agroforestry and Gender Politics in the Gambia, Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Sen, A.K., 1999, Development as Freedom, New York: Knopf.
- Sihlongonyane, M.F., 2001, ‘The Rhetoric of the Community in Project Management: The Case of Mohlakeng Township’, in Development in Practice, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 34-44.
- Silverman, D., 2000, ‘Analyzing Text and Talk’, in N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln, eds., Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd edition, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
- Smith, D.J., 1999, Having People: Fertility, Family and Modernity in Igbo- speaking Nigeria, (unpublished doctoral dissertation), Emory University, Atlanta.
- Spillane, J., 2000, ‘Cognition and Policy Implementation: District Policymakers and the Reform of Mathematics Education’, Cognition and Instruction, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 141-179.
- Spillane, J.P., 2004, Standards Deviation: How Schools Misunderstand Education Policy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- Williams, G., 2004, ‘Evaluating Participatory Development: Tyranny, Power and (re) Politicisation’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 557-578.
- Yanow, D., 1996, How Does a Policy Mean? Interpreting Policy and Organizational Actions, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
- Yanow, D., 2000, Conducting Interpretive Policy Analysis, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
References
Amanor, K., 2001, Land, Labour and the Family in Southern Ghana: A Critique of Land Policy under Neo-liberalisation, Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute.
Anyidoho, N.A., 2005, Making Sense of Development Policy: A Study of a Poverty Reduction Project in the Afram Plains of Ghana, Unpublished PhD dissertation, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
Anyidoho, N.A. ‘(forthcoming)’ Communities of Practice: Prospects for Theory and Action in Participatory Development.
Ball, S., 1993, ‘What is Policy? Texts, Trajectories and Toolboxes’, in Discourse, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 9–17.
Ball, S., 1994, Education Reform: A Critical Post-structural Approach, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Bledsoe, C.H. and Banja, F., 2002, Contingent Lives: Fertility, Time, and Aging in West Africa, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Brock, K., Cornwall, A. and Gaventa, J., 2001, Power, Knowledge and Political Spaces in the Framing of Poverty Policy (IDS Working Paper No. 143), Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.
Bronfenbrenner, U. and Morris, P.A., 1998, ‘The Ecology of Developmental Processes’, in W. Damon and R.M. Lerner, eds., Handbook of Child Psychology: Theoretical Models of Human Development, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Buvinic, M., 1986, ‘Projects for Women in the Third World: Explaining their ""Misbehaviour""’, World Development, Vol. 14, No. 5.
Chambers, R., 1983, Rural Development: Putting the Last First, Harlow: Longman.
Chambers, R., 1997, Whose reality counts? Putting the first last, London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
Cleaver, F., 1999, ‘Paradoxes of Participation: Questioning Participatory Approaches to Development’, Journal of International Development, Vol. 11, pp. 597-612.
Cleaver, F., 2001, ‘Institutions, Agency and the Limitations of Participatory Approaches to Development’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny?, London: Zed Books.
Coffey, A. and Atkinson, P., 1996, Making Sense of Qualitative Data: Complementary Research Strategies, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Cooke, B., 2001, ‘The Social Psychological Limits of Participation?’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny?, London: Zed Books.
Cooke, B. and Kothari, U., 2001, ‘The Case for Participation as Tyranny’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny?, London: Zed Books.
Cornwall, A., 1998, ‘Gender, Participation and the Politics of Difference’, in I. Guijt and M.K. Shah, eds., The Myth of Community: Gender Issues in Participatory Development, London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
Cornwall, A., 2002, Making Spaces, Changing Places: Situating Participation in Development (IDS Working Paper No. 170), Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.
Drake, C., 2001, ‘Stories and Stages: Teacher Development and Mathematics Education Reform’ (Doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, 2000), Dissertation Abstracts International, Vol. 61, 4273A.
Francis, P., 2001, ‘Participatory Development at the World Bank: The Primacy of Process’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny? London: Zed Books.
Guijt, I. and Shah, M.K., 1998, ‘Waking Up to Power, Conflict and Process’, in I. Guijt and M.K. Shah, eds., The Myth of Community: Gender Issues in Participatory Development, London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
Hill, H.C., 2001, ‘Policy is Not Enough: Language and the Interpretation of State Standards’, American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 38, pp. 289-318.
Kabeer, N., 1994, Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought, London: Verso.
Kapoor, I., 2002, ‘The Devils in the Theory: A Critical Assessment of Robert Chambers' Work on Participatory Development’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 101-117.
Kothari, U., 2001, ‘Power, Knowledge and Social Control in Participatory Development’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny? London: Zed Books.
Levinson, B.A.U. and Sutton, M., 2001, ‘Introduction: Policy as/in Practice - A Sociocultural Approach to the Study of Educational Policy’, in M. Sutton and B.A.U. Levinson, eds., Policy as Practice: Toward a Comparative Sociocultural Analysis of Educational Policy, Stamford: Ablex Pub, (http:// www.ebrary.com). 25 April 2005.
Lewis, D.A. and Maruna, S., 1999, ‘Person-centered Policy Analysis’, in S.S. Nagel, ed., Policy Analysis Methods, New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Lin, A., 2000, Reform in the Making: The Implementation of Social Policy in Prison, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Martinez-Flores, M., 2004, ‘The Intersection of Policy and Practice: Linking Teacher's Meaning to Actions’, Dissertation Abstracts International, Vol. 64, No. 7, 2329A.
Maruna, S., 1998, ‘Redeeming One's Self: How Reformed Ex-offenders Make Sense of their Lives’ (Doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, 1998), Dissertation Abstracts International, Vol. 59, 4535A.
McAdams, D.P., 1993, The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self, New York: Morrow.
McAdams, D.P., 1995, ‘What do we Know when we Know a Person?’ in Journal of Psychology, Vol. 63, pp. 365-396.
McAdams, D.P., 2001, The Person: An Integrated Introduction to Personality Psychology, 3rd edition, Orlando, FL.: Harcourt College Publishers.
Mosse, D., 2001, ‘""People’s Knowledge"", Participation and Patronage: Operations and Representations in Rural Development’, in B. Cooke and U. Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny? London: Zed Books.
Parfitt, T., 2004, ‘The Ambiguity of Participation: A Qualified Defence of Participatory Development’, in Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 537–556.
Schroeder, R.A., 1999, Shady Practices: Agroforestry and Gender Politics in the Gambia, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sen, A.K., 1999, Development as Freedom, New York: Knopf.
Sihlongonyane, M.F., 2001, ‘The Rhetoric of the Community in Project Management: The Case of Mohlakeng Township’, in Development in Practice, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 34-44.
Silverman, D., 2000, ‘Analyzing Text and Talk’, in N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln, eds., Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd edition, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Smith, D.J., 1999, Having People: Fertility, Family and Modernity in Igbo- speaking Nigeria, (unpublished doctoral dissertation), Emory University, Atlanta.
Spillane, J., 2000, ‘Cognition and Policy Implementation: District Policymakers and the Reform of Mathematics Education’, Cognition and Instruction, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 141-179.
Spillane, J.P., 2004, Standards Deviation: How Schools Misunderstand Education Policy, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Williams, G., 2004, ‘Evaluating Participatory Development: Tyranny, Power and (re) Politicisation’, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 557-578.
Yanow, D., 1996, How Does a Policy Mean? Interpreting Policy and Organizational Actions, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
Yanow, D., 2000, Conducting Interpretive Policy Analysis, Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.