Influence of Culture on Public Policy - Research Paper Example

Influence of Culture on Public Policy By Foundation Political Science [Department] 8th November 2014 Does culture have an influence on public policy? There have been various studies across the world to show the interactions between culture and common issues that affect human such as health, education, economic development, environment and security among others. These are challenges that all governments and other stakeholders face and how they approach them vary according to how they address key public policy challenges. The purpose of any public policy is to shape human behavior that is initially a formation of both social and cultural factors (Coyle and Ellis, 1994). Having good understanding of culture, in additional to common drivers of human behavior could be of help to any policy maker today. Both factors are commonly used in policy formation and examination, and could be used to shape public policies that might be more largely acceptable to the public and produce socially desirable results. In order to provide an answer and direction of the discussion in question (title), it would be right to make the following statement: culture has an influence on the process of formulating any public policy. The paper examines the topic of discussion, making an analysis of various concepts involved and the theoretical aspects of the proposed research topic. It will also provide an introduction to some of the leading literature that can be of help in describing this interaction. At the end, the paper will discuss the influence of culture on the agenda, institutions, process, content and outcomes of public policy on labor laws in reference to South Africa and the future of public policy making. Understanding the role of culture in shaping public policy Culture is defined as a historical system through which people develop their knowledge and approaches to life using inherited and symbolically communicated conceptions. The concepts comprise of the values and beliefs on the structure of the natural world and the society and how people derive certain behaviors from them. Culture influences most social norms and behaviors such as decision on demography, educational investment, innovation and saving among other economical choices. According to Singh and Parashar (2005) differences in cultures are determined by five antecedents: historical context, social identity, economical parameters, geography and institutional factors. Elements of historical context include the myths, symbols, colonization, historical territory and the extent of external influences (Triandis, 1994). Social identity features include the language spoken, religions, sex ratio, ethnicity and literacy levels (Peterson and Smith, 1997). On economic parameters, factors such as economic and technological advancements are highlighted. Institutional factors include the legal systems and the existing rule of law. On geography, common factors include the topography, ecology, climate, boundaries and habitation structure. According to Singh and Parashar (2005), these elements impact on all entities of a society including organizations and industries. A careful analysis of the elements could lead to a more complex cultural map of the world. Culture can broadly be categorized into four major types: fatalist, individualist, hierarchist and egalitarian. All these types have different characteristics as regarding to how they view certain topics. For example, on the issue of management styles and approaches, fatalists have a passive approach and authoritarian leadership. On the other hand, individualist are adaptive in nature. Regarding how they view risks and liabilities, hierarchists are known to be risk accepting while the egalitarian type are risk averse. In a measure of how each type view their future generations, fatalists have a pessimistic view while the hierarchists have a long-term though measured optimism about the resilience of their future generations. Many researchers and practitioners approve the use of this kinds of models that provide links between cultures and topics of interest as highlighted above. The review of the model used above shows how different culture types have different tastes in certain topics. It is, therefore, imperative to understand how the variances in taste reflect on the shaping of policies adopted by certain societies. How culture influences public policy making During the formulation of any public policy, law makers have to consider the orientation of existing culture on the idea. The influence that any cultural capital on individual or community behavior is referred to as cultural change. Cultural change emphasizes on how social and cultural capital influences the decision making process in policy making and how factors such as availability of financial incentives drive behavior in individuals. Examples of cultural capital include families, schools and workplaces, role of parenting, social media and neighborhoods. It is said that cultural capital demonstrates in several human values, social norms and attitudes which consequently lead to adoption of certain behaviors by individuals regarding how they make particular decisions. The behaviors are driven by factors such as availability of information, legislation that is in place and financial incentives. Policy makers should understand the concept of cultural change while making an effort to improve some features of a society’s culture. An improvement to the political and economic institutions can, therefore, help to ease this method. Examples of how cultural change can be applied in making public policy According to Knott et al. (2008), cultural change can be used to drive policy making process although this requires time. For example, it is recommended that early childhood years are the right time to encourage setting of education goals in human. Good parenting, development of positive accounts on education, integrated advisory methods and financial support all help to mold children to grow up as people who can aspire and focus on education. To promote healthy living, Knott et al. (2008) recommend developing community infrastructure that promotes the same. The infrastructure could be on building partnerships with employers and schools and a more personalized support for good health. Unhealthy products should also be discouraged from circulating through use of legislation and instead ample information on health promoted. It is through such marketing campaigns that adaptive forms of behaviors are slowly adopted in the society. A final example involves developing norms on environmental sustainability and protection. Here, Knott et al (2008), recommend the use of policy narratives through the voluntary sector and schools. There should be promotion of environmentally friendly messages, fiscal incentives, regulation and consultative services to strengthen sustainability. There are numerous elements of culture that form a basis in the formation of any public policy today. The common elements include: religion, society’s attitude towards women, political structure, cross cultural differences, ethnic values, beliefs, family structure, languages, and traditional laws among others. Having introduced the concepts of culture and public policy, the paper will now proceed to a more practical point of developing a framework that explains the role of culture in shaping public policy. Several literature reviews have outlined competing hypothesis on whether or not, culture has a significant influence on public policy. It is, however, evident that most of those reviews underscore the utility of culture in relation to its ability to shape public policy. In demonstrating the current thoughts on the role of culture as has already been examined to play in some occasions of designing public policy, a case study from South Africa will be used. Shaping public policy It is the role of government entities in every society to legislate laws, formulate policies and allocate public resources. The structure of laws, courses of actions, governing procedures and placement of funding priorities by the government entities, is referred to as public policy. Public policy includes all the decisions that determine how a country is run. Any public policy comprises of four specific components: 1) Principles- a framework that outlines how public affairs are managed; 2) objectives- defined priorities that are related to the specific challenges identified; 3) measures- decisions made and the instruments used to effect change; 4) actions- activities of all stakeholders charged with the implementation process of the policy. Public policy is characterized by an elaborate collection of models that stem from a variety of sources. Public policy is made up of five major elements: actors, institutions, representations, processes and results (Coyle and Ellis, 1994). Actors are all individuals and interest groups with the necessary resources, strategies, some form of self-sufficiency, and ability to make individual choices. Actors help to shape the public policy through education, lobbying or advocacy. The shaping process involves efforts by conflicting interest groups to influence the policy makers to approve certain policies in their favor. Often, advocacy groups try to educate the public policy makers and the general public about the existing problematic issues in the society. The groups also inform the relevant authorities on what kind of legislation is required to address the issues. They also provide a breakdown of the amount of funding necessary to conduct research and provide services. Generally, advocacy improves the public policy process especially where sound research is taken into account accordingly and good education offered to the public. Institutions refer to the rules and regulations, routines, norms and procedures which govern interactions between various stakeholders and members of a society. Representation refers to frameworks, both cognitive and normative enhance, condition and reflect the actions. Processes on the other hand refers to all forms of interaction and the changes that they undergo over time, taking into account of the mobilization processes for all individuals and interest groups involved. Results are the yields and outcomes of a public policy and all supplementary public action. Essentially, they are the effects and the consequences of the policy. The process of public policy Shaping of public policy involves an interaction of all the five elements mentioned in the earlier discussion, that is: actors, institutions, representations, processes and results (Coyle and Ellis, 1994). Alternative models are also available but they also rotate around the same elements. For example, some of the models concentrate on how a public policy is designed through time and others focus solely on the actions of the policy actors and interactions. However, a similarity in almost all the public policy models is the conceptualization of the policy process in sets of either cyclical or sequential phases. The common phases in the models include: identification of the issue or problem, policy objective and boundary description, its design, testing and analysis of the policy. Other stages include the policy approval, execution, evaluation and monitoring and probable readjustment and innovations. Prime examples of common models include: ‘Advocacy coalition framework’ (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993), Policy Communities’ (Pross, 1986), and ‘System’s approach’ (Colebatch, 2006) among others. According to Mayer et al. (2004), there are various public policy models used today and each model emphasize on the importance of different values and ways of working through policy issues as preferred by the majority. The policy should be both object and subject oriented and also provide idealistic and practical values and criteria. The policy making process should provide room for mutual understanding between actors and thus should be democratic and clear. If necessary, mediation processes should be factored in where arguments and values that have been introduced are not clear. Research and analysis phase should observe objectivity and an independent scientist preferably involved. During the design process, an impartial expert is recommended to provide advice on what is good for all parties involved. With the discussion above on how a public policy is formulated, it is possible to expound on the topic question on the role of culture in shaping public policy. Case study: Formulation of public policy on labor laws in South Africa Various countries have different preferences and practices that outline how to take in stakeholders who are affected or who are able to affect public policy making development. Conventionally, public participation in the decision making for any public policy has been emphasized and especially in areas of environment and high risk fields such as adoption of new technology. This is in accordance to most UN statements and conventions such as the Aarhus Convention of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The case study outlined below will discuss public policy on labour laws in South Africa and how culture infiltrated into the policy making process in a quest to bring to an the widespread legacy of apartheid that had for a long time reigned in the country’s labour system. The case study will introduce South Africa’s policy background while highlighting various challenges that affect employees especially the women and black people. In 2012, South Africa adopted a popular program for the labour sector known as Social Solidarity Economy (SSE) that is still considered to be as a source of employment creation. Since the inception of the program, there has been a renewed interest in the employment sector and this has been characterized by the formulation of a new macro-economic policy- prevalently referred to as the New Growth Path. Through the policy, the government has tried to direct focus to a more inclusive economy and on the previously disadvantaged groups and individuals. The inclination of the Government to this policy has been influenced by a collective societal demand for an end to the previous state of the employment sector which favored the white population in jobs allocation. The labour policy was, therefore, created to address the disparities that had been created by apartheid. The policy is part of other policy areas that underwent immense reforms in the early years of the country’s democracy. The policy framework is contained in the country’s constitution and underlines the right to impartial labour practices such as the freedom to choose an occupation, profession or a trade. The public policy on labor was enacted in 1997 although prior to the legislation, it underwent through a public participation to make it as inclusive as possible. The adoption of various concepts brought up by the majority public during this phase is evident in the labor sector today. There are more black people working in various economic sectors in the country and more women hold high positions in the job environments as opposed to the previous picture that was painted during the apartheid era. It is evident that certain actors were able to develop feasible policy solutions to bring an end to the predominant strength of cultural biases that had been for a long time exhibited by former policy actors during apartheid. The effect of public participation thus was to provide a collective opinion of what the majority public believed was right. The values and beliefs of the people were, therefore, supported by the political structure that was in place to provide a policy that freely accommodates anyone to engage in numerous employment opportunities available in the South Africa. Conclusion Cultural factors are influential in the political participation, social cohesion, economic behaviors and value creation and evolution. It is considered that a lot has yet to be developed concerning the role of culture and the impacts of cultural alignments and biases have on formations of public policies. The concepts that have been explained in the paper could be used to address a variety of concerns across all spheres of policy making processes. All these elements are closely linked to why and how various public policies are developed in diverse methods and in different countries. In an attempt to understand public policy and governance, it is important to first have a close look into the existing culture. The reason for this is that knowledge of policies, politics and practices heavily relies on an analysis of culture. On the future of the cultural influence on public policy, it would be prudent if investigations could be done to determine how various cultural variables could cause failure in public policy. It is an area that has received little attention to date and thus better focus on the same could be insightful. There should also be more investigations on the issue of policy transfer between different countries. It is common practice to have countries borrow elements of certain public policies from other countries and therefore clear guidelines should be provided on this front. For example, stakeholders should come up with questions such as: how are scientific counsel, public preferences and opinions and local knowledge observed and used by policy makers in various countries- to what degree do a society’s cultural orientations affect the relative importance of these sources of information and how are they incorporated into policy making processes? Understanding the impact of the cultural biases on the processes may allow room for adoption of new policy making ideologies and what kind of adaptation is required for the policy to fit in well in the new society or country. Bibliography Colebatch, H.K., 2006, The Work of Policy: An International Survey, Lexington Books, Oxford. Coyle, D. J. and Ellis, R. J., 1994, Politics, Policy, and Culture, Westview Press, Boulder. Knott, D., Muers, S., & Aldridge, S., 2008, Achieving culture change: a policy framework: a discussion paper by the Strategy Unit., Cabinet Office, Strategy Unit, London. Mayer, I.S., Van Daalen, C.E. and Bots, P., 2004, ‘Perspectives on policy analyses: a framework for understanding and design’, International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management, Vol 4, no 2, pp. 169-191. Pross, P., 1986, Group politics and public policy, Oxford University Press, Toronto. Sabatier, P. and Jenkins-Smith, H., 1993, Policy change and learning: an advocacy coalition approach, Westview Press, Boulder. Singh, S.K., and Parashar, M., 2005, Cross-cultural conceptualizations revisited, Paper presented at the Eleventh Cross-Cultural Research Conference, New Orleans. Triandis, H.C., 1994, Culture and social behaviour, McGraw-Hill, New York. Read More