Values and policy decisions

Public policy environments will invariably include some contentious policy decisions. These decisions will often involve implicit value judgements about what is important and what is not. In debating contentious policy, it can be useful to delve into underlying values. The debates on values can help develop clearer foundational frameworks that will improve future policymaking and decision-making processes.

It is noteworthy that while the influence of interests, resources and institutions on any policy is usually well understood, the role of values is often overlooked. Even though the relative relevance of these different components of policies is contingent on context, on a foundational level, values are critical. Values underpin policy positions and can significantly help in assigning priority and relative importance to certain policies.

Public policy formulation usually involves a complex interplay of different influences. Significant contributors to policy-relevant decision-making are interests. Policymakers will keep interests in mind and take decisions on utilising the public resources available to satisfy the interests. The limitation on utilisation comes from the limitation of resources on the one hand and the contention among competing interests, on the other. The institutions of society – be they political, social or economic – will help navigate between the utilisation of resources and the satisfaction of interests.

The relationship between values and policies is mutually reinforcing. Values influence policy formulation, and policy can instil or consolidate values. To clarify, the term ‘values’ is being used here to indicate that which helps in deciding what is right or wrong, and the major reason why the role of values is sometimes difficult to discern is because values are often deeply embedded. Also, all public values are not equally strong with different groups and neither are all values equally important in all situations.

Sometimes there is a conflict between values, and this can lead to difficult decision-making situations. For example, the choice to use limited developmental resources to build either a university or a hospital or a sporting facility can be a tough decision. Different segments of society may take different positions on each of these choices. The process of taking such a decision will at some juncture involve discussions around values.

The discussions on values are also not that simple. These discussions may uncover serious and fundamental cleavages in society. However, resolving these cleavages may steer society towards better understanding different value positions and may eventually lead to deeper stability and consensus.

Values can be classified in different ways. One way of sorting values is on the basis of a value being anthropocentric or non-anthropocentric. An anthropocentric value is a value that is human-centred and promotes human interests. These interests can be economic, social or political in nature, and the interests may be particularly pertinent to certain populations or areas. Non-anthropocentric values are those that are not human-centred, and they may be thought of as providing benefits in and of themselves.

Invoking values is a complex process, and the delineation of values involved in different policy positions may not be easy to see. Taking the division of values in the seemingly disparate classification of them being either anthropocentric or non-anthropocentric can be complex, and the two classes can conflate in particular contexts. Take the example of biodiversity, preservation and the extinction of species. The preservation of species from extinction has a primary non-anthropocentric dimension but from certain angles preservation yields human-centred benefits.

The application of values to policy issues is complicated by the emergence of new issues with innovation and developments in technology. The answers to debates on policy issues, where values are central, are very much shaped with cultural and geographic contexts. Some of the contentious policy issues, such as the issues of assisted suicide or euthanasia, that are seen in Western societies may not evoke the same level of interest in developing countries. Similarly, many policy issues being faced by the developing countries are not able to muster the same level of interest as is found in developed countries.

While values are contingent on culture and geography, there are certain values that have managed to attain some global relevance. These values include ideas such as growth, sustainability, equality, sovereignty, freedom, etc. It is important to realise that the invoking of policy can be in two different levels. One is a more deeply embedded belief in certain values and this deep belief that influences different stages of policy-related decision-making. The influence of these deeply embedded beliefs is sometime hard to realise. However, there is another level of more superficially invoking values in policy debates.

The level of a more symbolic invocation of values is more a result of the way issues have been packaged or framed. Here values are presented to gather public support for public decisions. In these kinds of situations, the connection of the policy position to the stated values needs to be carefully evaluated to separate the politically expedient from that which is truly values driven.

While there can seldom be an outright rejection of the importance of values in decision-making in general, and policy formulation in particular, there is a need to understand the difference between individual and public values. Individual values are hard to ascertain as an individual holds them, and, in contrast, public values are publicly held by groups in society, or by society at large.

In terms of policymaking or political decision-making, it is important to realise that public values will usually enjoy public support, and it will be public values with the greatest support that will be the most influential in public debates on political or policy decisions.

In the process of debating policy decisions, it is important to pursue uncovering underlying values at the individual level and, much more importantly, at the public level. A sincere discussion on these values will help clarify and establish foundations that can then be used to simplify the process of policymaking and decision-making. There is also a need to question the deceptive use of widely held public values to unjustifiably lend support to policy decisions.

Policy-relevant decision-making on a foundational level is driven by values. The values that influence policy formulation can be deeply rooted and their influence can sometimes be difficult to delineate. Also, widely held public values can be freely and very effectively invoked to lend support to politically expedient decision-making.

A sincere debate on underlying values, in the ambit of debating public policy, will help clarify and consolidate foundations for better policymaking and decision-making in future.

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