7 0 Governance, Administration and Development them' (Grindle and Thomas, 1989, p. 220).

It has even been evident in some neo-Marxist literature where the state demonstrates relative autonomy in making decisions against the expressed interests of the . dominant classes. The state is seen to have interests - or to avoid reification, off- als of the state identify and pursue collective interests because of their shared location in the state. These state interests can refer to any aspect of human activity ranging from defence of the state t, 7, attempts to change public morals. Different states can be seen as having different degrees of autonomy and perhaps different interests vis-a vu those of societal actors. The great strength of this approach is that although its analytical focus is the state, the nature of state-society relations is also of concern as this will determine the degree of autonomy of policy elites in the state. As Nordlinger (1987, p. 386) notes, `Taking the state seriously involves bringing statist 'and societal accounts of state autonomy together in empirically meaningful, mutually illuminating, and ana lytically integrated ways'. We will pursue one of these ways in the next section where we make deeper investigations of who actually participates in policy-making and who does not.

The Policy Process 71 demonstrated little tolerance of dissent over his policies. In some instances, such as Idi Amin in Uganda, it is not even possible to talk of a policy circle as the extreme unpredic tabi lity of life and arbitrariness"of decision-making render the notion of policy obsolete. As in much of the de\ e'.oping world the regimes of sub-Saharan Africa have frequently been authoritarian in character. Such regimes I,} definition restrict decision-making to relatively few individuals and groups. Democratic forms such as parliaments and congresses are typically closed or shorn :), lws\er, regime opponents may be im prisoned, the media are tigh tly controlled and mobilization of the population is at the hrhcst >f the state. While personal rulers such as Banda, Marcos and Somcza feature prominently in authoritarian regimes there are in fact outer significant actors in the policy circle. The most obvious of these actors is the military. In Latin America, for example, military ; ntcr , cation in politics and prolonged military rule have been common. Contemporary Latin American armies are professionalized, self-conscious and hierarchically organized forces which began to intervene it politics in response to economic collapse and perceived civilian incoo:petence in the 1920s and 1930s (C am mack et al., 1988). They i ; ve ruled for considerable periods, espe cially in the more developed countries on the continent, and even when not in office have exerted considerable influence on policy making. In the Middle East. the military has played a `decisive role'. Since, 1958, the monarchic, of Iraq, Egypt and Libya have fallen to officer-led initiatives while ;,onlemporary Syrian politics focuses on factional shifts within the military. Middle Eastern military regimes have sometimes been radical pursuing policies of land reform and nationalization. They have sometimes returned to the barracks but like all militaries which havee led or participated in government they are reluctant to leave national affairs to civilians and remain `a force behind the scenes, and at minimum a powerful pressure group whose interests and views must be taken into account' (ibid., p. 146). Less obvious but perhaps more pervasive in Third World policy making circles are the leading public servants and their vast bureau cracies. N\-e will make morn detailed examination of these bureau cracies in the next chapter but \ve will make a few comments on their policy role now. In many instances, public servants do not simply wait to be issued imple:nc:a:,tiott orders, they are actively involved in various ways and to varying degrees in the business of policy-making. 1 n Bangladesh, for example it has been reported that:-

Participation in the policy-making process While the majority of Third World leaders invoke the name of the people and democracy the level of popular participation in policy making has been generally much less than in the OECD nations. There are fewer participants in the policy-making process and the official channels for participation are more restricted. Such restriction can lead to the use of non-democratic forms of mobilizing power including violent challenges to the government. In sub-Saharan Africa the typical contemporary regime has re volved round the person of the ruler (Gulhati, 1990). A varying combination of patronage and coercion secures compliance while factional struggles and regime uncertainty are endemic. Policy circles are narrow. In Zambia, for example, there is a history of parliamen tary debate - and some airing of critical commentary in the press. In cabinet and the bureaucracy there were conflicts over policy but President Kaunda acted as the princely arbitc: ofdisputes, sometimes overruling cabinet or simply ignoring it. In Malawi, President Banda

72 Governance, Adminisiration and Development

The Policy Process 73

Due to the absence of an effective extrabureaucratic power structure, bureaucratic domination has become so extensive that it pervades the entire social fabric. Bureaucrats have take.^n upon themselves the responsibility of public decision making, and there is no efficacious means of holding them accountable for their a ,:tions (Khan and Zafrullah, 1991). Also active in the authoritarian, and indeed democratic, policy making circle is the bourgeoisie, the owners of big businesses. In Latin America businesses have organizations that represent their commer cial, financial and industrial interests. These organizations.do not work through political parties but lobby legislative bodies and get members onto government commissions and boards. 'Nlembers of the bourgeoisie deal directly with public officials using personal ties and perhaps bribery to pursue their policy options. There is not a consistent set of bourgeois policies. These are determined by historically specific factors and the bourgeoisie are always only one of the players vying for policy control (Wynia, 1990). ' For example, while the transitions to `uncertain democracies' in Ecuador and Bolivia in the 1980s were greatly influenced by business organizations, the latter were unable to guide the transitions com pletely to their liking. They were always constrained by other players in civil society and the state - trade unions, popular organizations, the military and political parties (Conaghan, 1990). Such experiences lead to the general point that capitalism in Third World countries does not automatically entail unfettered business elites exerting a free hand in policy-making. They are always constrained by other actors from neopatrimonial rulers to elected legislatures. The bourgeoisie may also be fragmented into competing interests and engage in internal squabbles about the direction of economic policy. In some instances the national bourgeoisie may be weak allowing public officials to extend the economic interests of the state, thus promoting the ascendancy of a bureaucratic bourgeoisie whose class position and privilege is directly dependent upon the state. A weak national bourgeoisie may also allow foreign capital to exert dominance in the local economy and permit transnational corporations to become major actors in the domestic policy circle. There are other actors in the policy circle but they may be nation or issue-specific, and their relative strength ,;2n vary over time. The Roman Catholic Church exerts influence in Latin America; in some countries trade unions wield power-, and where higher levels of'

cconomic growth have been recorded the emergent middle _classes may start to participate in defining policy issues. But there are many whose participation is %cc:.k, sporadic or non-existent. Policy is dct,.rminccl by Miles. Sonic invinhers of* these Miles may claim to represent the interests of the.css-powerful masses but it is evident that the majority of the populations in developing countries have not -enjoyed access to, or influence over, policy circles. Atuhoritarian regimes by definition have narrow policy circles. Democratically elected ass,nblies may have restricted powers or consist of members of privileged classes. Mass organizations have often been discouraged or rrni:e illegal. Coercion by state agencies or private forces has been ce: imon. The result is exclusion from the policy process of the bulk of the population in the developing world. Perceived apathy of these r:)pulations may result from the rigours of attending to daily subsiste- cr needs, the demands of patron-client networks, the difficulty of :)rganization in hostile political environments and the systematic clcsure ofpolic; circles by elites. A couple of examples of who does not make policy will help to clarify these general points. Sub-Saharan African soc ctics are predominantly agrarian. Therefore, one might suppose th: : the peasant farming families who make up the majority of the population have_ exerted some influence on pnlicy-making or have hccc. represented by p:crticular Oites. But, we find a history of neglect a!:d exploitation. Policies have been characterized as follows: (i) maintaining unduly low producer prices; (ii) extracting public revenue through taxes r.!: export crops or surpluses of agricultural marketing parastatals; (iii) overvalued currencies; (iv) maintaining lowcost food for urban dwellers; (v) raising prices of locally manufactured items ab:we international prices via tariffs and import restrictions; and (vi) a marked urban bias in the pattern of public expenditure. (Gu!hati, 1990, pp. 1152-3) ,Such policies have been constructed by a coalition of rulers, bureaucrats, urban work.ss, local industrialists and occasionally multinational corporations. The poor African farming family is . uc,tahlv absent from the cirtc. Each Iihc participants in the circle benefits in some wav Iio111 tile policies, for exan,pic, cheap food for urban workers, protection for urban manufacturers, siibsidizcd-irtt lu,rts Irn-coil ,mcrcial f.1rm;is. rents for the bureaucrats ahd rulers. By

74 Governance, Administration and Development keeping the coalition happy and the smallholder denied, the ruler will survive. But what has been the smallholder's response? According to Bates (1981), smallholders search for crops with better prices and will move into informal or black markets. They may see better opportu nities in the towns and migrate to tile urban areas. Thus, they may avoid or attempt to make the best of the discriminatory policies but they are not admitted to the

The Policy Process 75 and office because experience in this sphere is said to limit their horizons and loyalties. Con; crscly, masculine characteristics are cited as the requirements for poiaics. Thus, women arc made ineligible for political roles. So how have a significant number of women in South and South east Asia achieved such political prominence? Richter (ibid., p. 526) argues that `%N-omen are zccepted as behaving appropriately in politics when they are perceived as filling a political void created bv the death or imprisonirient of a mal^ f tiilily member.' All of the above examples corroborate this. One can further generalize that female politicians come G om privileged social classes where domestic work is performed by scrv-, nts. What this adds up to is that women politicians tend to be in o rice lbr reasons other than being women and that their primary lo):,Ity may be to class or family interests. As one female lobbyist in the

policy

circle.

Smallholders find it difficult to organize interest groups because they are numerically large, diverse and scattered. Costs of lobbying are high and there is the incentive to free ride. Commercial farmers do not provide leadership because they are seduced by input sub sidies. Parties or factions that try to mobilize peasants into interest groups are repressed by the government. A second group which has limited access to the policy circle and hence to decision-making which directly aitccts their lives is wo-mer'. Gender is one of the social bases of inequality but cross-cuts others such

iiilippincs observed to us in early 1993, up to that time all)-

as

class and ethnicity. Thus, women may have common interests

as women but sometimes may perceive themselves to have conflicting interests as women of particular ethnic groups or classes. As we saw in the previous chapter women appear to have fared less well in the development process than men. This can be conceptualized in terms of the relative powerlessness of women. One way in which this can be seen is in the heavy male domination of parliaments, congresses and other assemblies at all levels of the state. While the overall figure for developing countries (l4 per cent of male parliamentarian figure) is marginally above that for the OECD countries (13 per cent), both figures are low and hide considerable discrepancies. Fifty-five developing countries are below 10 per cent while only 30 are above. Also, there are no data for 42 countries, among which are nations such as Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern states which have few or no female representatives in the formal political institutions of state. But some countries which have been associated with patriarchy have produced politically prominent females - Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, Corazon Aquino in the Philippines, Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, Begum Khalida Zia and Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh, Indira Gandhi in India and Chandrika Kumaratunga in Sri Lanka. In these countries, and many others, politics has been presumed to be the natural sphere of men while women's natural sphere has been determined as the private and domestic (Richter, 1990). Allocation to this sphere has worked

1>rogressivr legislation for females ad been tabled by males in tile Philippine Congress. Rising levels of education and greater participation in tile labour market -are no guarantees

or

more women in elective politics. Japan,

South Korea, Argentina -;-ad Chile are a few examples of that. In each case, women parliameut^riatu make ill) less than 6 per cent of their male counterparts. 'r'c,rhaps, women have made their greatest gains outside of the forma: electoral structures in non-governmental organizations, which call 11, c linked nationally and internationally in networks and which can apply pressure oil the formal system of policymaking and implemen(ation. Such organizations may yet provide the foundations for greater female representation in politics and greater attention to gender issues in policy.

Policy, politics and implementation There is a persistent mytl.. or perhaps naive assumption that politi cians make policy and pu )lic servants implement it rationally `as if implementation was something utterly simple and automatic' (Lane, 1993, p. 93). While both mliticians and bureaucrats are frequently active in promulgating and maintaining this myth, the reality is somevchat different. Imhicmcntation is not casy and straightforward and cannot be. simply classified as - a technical exercise involving calculated choices oCappropriate techniques ~;sce Box 3.4 for common implementation problems). implementation is frequently a highly

to

exclude women from political competition