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Thursday March 28, 2024

Complexity and collaborative policy

By Dr Imran Syed
February 03, 2021

Making appropriate policies to address complex issues is not a simple thing. If inappropriately addressed, according to H L Mencken, the complexities of an issue can result in answers to difficult problems that are “clear simple and wrong.”

Complex issues include problems like stabilizing the global economy and curtailing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. In contemporary times such complex issues, which involve a system of interconnected and interdependent elements, can significantly impact everyday life and present serious policymaking challenges. Collaborative policymaking is an approach to policy that can provide a reasonable basis for addressing complex issues.

Contemporary issues are often complicated collections of extensive sets of interrelated elements – and even though they may demonstrate regularities, still there are times when the constituent elements can behave unpredictably. The changes to a single element in one part of these complex multi-element systems can sometimes have distinctly significant consequences elsewhere. These characteristics further add to the complexity of the issues.

The Covid-19 pandemic is a good example of the increasing complexity of our times. There still remains much that is not fully understood about how the coronavirus originated, the different ways in which it can spread, how best to protect individuals against contracting the virus and, once infected, what is the most effective way to manage an individual’s recovery.

In our globalized and interconnected world, as people travel and foodstuff and other goods move across borders, controlling the spread of the coronavirus is not a simple task. At the present time, any notion of being able to fully control the spread of the virus at the global level in the near future seems far-fetched.

As vaccines against Covid-19 are tested and gradually start becoming available, new variants of the virus have recently emerged in the UK, South Africa and Brazil. In this uncertain worrisome situation, effective policymaking to control Covid-19 seems difficult. The challenge of addressing Covid-19 is not dissimilar to other intractable and complex contemporary problems like environmental damage, money laundering, human trafficking, and other such issues. The mounting complexity of the current issues makes the traditional ways of policy analysis, policymaking and implementation inadequate in effectively resolving matters. The traditional approaches to policymaking use top-down mechanisms that utilize ‘expert’ knowledge and are likely to perpetuate elite privilege. In challenging this nature of policymaking, the very foundations of knowledge, that has been providing a basis for policy decisions, need to be viewed as susceptible to interpretations and biases.

The traditional approaches view policy analysis, policymaking and policy implementation processes in a simple and straightforward manner. In the traditional view of things, the policy processes need to proceed forward in a linear and predictable manner. In this policymaking approach, the goals of policies are clear and the problems that policies aim to address are also neatly defined.

The complex nonlinear challenges of the contemporary times highlight the inadequacy of the traditional approaches to policymaking and emphasize the need for more open, inclusive and collaborative policymaking processes. Collaboration generally means people working in groups, communities, organizations or institutions to share, plan, and solve problems and take collective decisions. The public also appear to be more aware and demanding of more inclusive and collaborative policy processes. Collaborative policy processes mean that the various stakeholders affected by a particular issue will work in a collaborative manner to arrive at mutually acceptable solutions.

A distinguishing characteristic of collaborative processes is in the extent of involvement of the stakeholders. There is a need for more fully accommodating diverging views rather than just providing diverse stakeholders an opportunity to voice differing points of view. The collaborative approach to policy has been used in a variety of decision-making situations, most notably, around natural resource sharing and some good initiatives, among others, have been undertaken in the United States, Australia and the Netherlands.

In practical instances of successful collaborative policy processes, there is much variety to be found. The interventions vary in terms of the lead actor or agency. In some cases, the impetus comes from a non-governmental organization, or a community group, or a government agency or the courts. The scale at which the collaborative initiative is undertaken can also vary widely. The scale of interventions may extend from a neighborhood, to a city, a province, country or to the global level. Depending on the context of the collaborative initiative, the duration of the initiative could vary from a few weeks to a few years. The areas that have been addressed have also varied – from natural resource distribution to police reforms to urban development to community planning, etc.

A successful collaborative policymaking process will have different groups or interests working together to arrive at collective solutions. For progress in this activity, it is important that the collaborative process meaningfully involves all relevant stakeholders. The collaborative process will also benefit from face-to-face discussions; and the participants in the collaboration need to understand that the process may take time.

The open-ended nature of the process may mean uncertainty and frustration along the interaction particularly when things are not proceeding in a neat linear path. To guide the process it may be necessary to provide a rough map of the steps involved and the involvement of a skilled facilitator may be needed to steer the process smoothly forward. Other characteristics that have been useful in collaborative policy processes include direct dialogue among the stakeholders. The effectiveness of the dialogue is enhanced when there is a high level of information sharing and openness to new and innovative ideas.

There is also a binding need to provide respect to all the participating stakeholders who are sitting around the table. This can be an area that warrants special attention when there are asymmetrical power distributions among the stakeholders. Also, different levels of education, knowledge and skills will require careful handling to ensure that differing perspectives are appropriately presented and understood. In making the process meaningful it is critical that the possibilities of mutual gain are explored, debated and developed.

The collaborative process, when appropriately applied, can promote inclusion and build social capital and, in addition to addressing the problem at hand, can help build a capacity among the actors to better address future problems using collaborative policy processes.

Life is complex and this complexity poses challenges in formulating and implementing good policy. For policymakers to better address complex contemporary issues, such as climate change and global pandemics, there is a need to depart from traditional top-down policy processes and move towards inclusive collaborative policy processes.

The writer heads a university-based policy centre in Islamabad.