POWER, POLICY AND DEVELOPMENT
5.4 POWER AND ITS RELEVANCE TO POLICY DEVELOPMENT
Power is an inescapable phenomenon. Governments, love, family, race, gender relations and social, economic, political and cultural institutions all reflect power relations in society. Power thus affects people as they practice, enforce or succumb to it. Policies thus become a strong feature in power relations.
Therefore, it is critical for any policy student or scholar to understand power and power relations because it assists us to develop a deeper understanding of why certain decisions are made and others are not made and the interests that those outcomes serve. It is also important because as policy agents we then come to understand whose interests those policies serve. How are those interests being served? It is for this reason that this chapter will look closely at the relationship between power and policy development.
There is a general agreement from all scholars and social scientists on the existence of power. There are nevertheless differing views on the discourses of power. They often approach it from different political schools of thought and are influenced by different ideologies.
Lukes (1974) provides us with a very good analytical tool of power as a concept.
His conceptual analysis, framework and perspective of dimensions of power assist us as scholars of government policy to understand how power operates in a political context where decisions about how the country is to be run are taken.
5.4.1 LUKES' THREE DIMENSIONAL VIEW OF POWER
The one-dimensional view, sometimes called a pluralist view, mainly looks at the conflict in the decision making process. This pluralist view of power tends to confine itself to observable behaviour in decision making process. According to
this view "power can be analyzed only after 'careful examination of a series of concrete decisions." (Lukes, 1974: 13) It looks at what is taking place and why such outcomes take place. Using street trading as an example, the emphasis will be on the breaking of by-laws or enforcement of those by laws. The danger with this view is that the other underlying factors that shape street trading like
international trends, class stratification and the economy of scale may be overlooked.
Lukes' two-dimensional view of power, he argues, came to place as a response and critique of the one-dimensional view. (Lukes, 1974: 19) This view moves from the premise that behavioural aspects in decision making alone does not provide an adequate or full picture of the subject in question. It is restrictive and somewhat obscure. Therefore the two-dimensional view thus attempts to broaden the understanding of power relations by bringing in the factor of inaction over and above behavioural aspects. This school of thought argues that a non- decision can be deliberate. Deliberate non-decision making process prevents equality in society because those people who engage in non-decision making resist and inhibit equality in society. This view thus provides both the subjective and conflicting interests. Therefore it moves beyond why certain decisions are taken and why certain decisions are not taken and why certain outcomes are not met or do not take place. In other words it argues that to build on a shortcoming is to make it worse and outcomes may be the opposite of what you intend.
The final dimensional view is the three dimensional view, which improves on both the one and two-dimensional views in attempting to eliminate the
shortcomings of both views. Here one goes beyond the behavioural aspects and inaction in decision making, by offering a sociological perspective of power and the structure of social institutions. It looks at the different mechanisms of power and the competing interests that exist in society. It admits two types of interests, namely, the real versus the subjective interests.
Lukes' three dimensional view of power can assist us as policy makers in making better policies by developing a clear understanding of underlying
factors in power relations. Let us attempt to use Lukes' three-dimensional view of power in analyzing informal trading. We will use three-dimensional views as building blocks. What follows below is an attempt to show how Lukes' views could be used to develop our understanding of the phenomenon we want to develop a policy around. This is important because a number of policies fail to take into account different issues, interests, stakeholders and motives that shape the context under question. Therefore as a policy maker it is critical to answer the following questions in the context of power relations to analyze any matter that is critical to an organization so as to come up with a relatively sustainable solution where all stakeholders interests are taken into account:
1. What are the issues?
2. Who is involved?
3. Why are they involved?
4. How are their interests served?
The importance of understanding power relations in policy formulation helps us to understand the dynamics involved in socio-economic and political issues.
Lukes' three-dimensional views of power offer a very useful analytical tool for policy makers and scholars. It helps us understand the power and power
relations in social institutions and structures. Using this tool we have learnt that it is not only the local players and the directly affected players that need to be taken into account when we develop policies or when we analyze power relations. National government, financial institutions and the public are also parties that are critical in the informal sector policy debate.