In Pakistan, political philosophy is rejected as some abstract area of study irrelevant to our practical life, instead of recognizing it as a quintessential framework for us to understand the world and to prosper, it is resulting in abandoning political wisdom of the country’s matters. With experiences and critical observations from working set-ups to a mere lone reflection on the political and social insights have made us realize that politics and governance with all its political realities are both the cause and effect of the social issues, both having policy processes as its heart.
Additionally, people and politics are linked through policies, that shapes up a society in regard to socio-economic affairs. Having such variable political history and a close-eye over the existent political scenarios and administrative frameworks, the limitations of policy analysis and its implementation in the public sector has become very familiar. In Pakistan, public administration is immersed into ad hoc decisions and short-term fixes, usually attributed to the politicized nature of decision-making. Further, parochial practices like political point-scoring, orthodox methods, appeasing lobbies and cronyism compromise the objectivity of policy making.
The political heed in the formulation of policy and development can often be acknowledged due to the electoral mandate and responsibilities, however, from the standpoint of development practitioners, the unwarranted influence of political interest is unavoidable, and is often seen as problems to be worked around rather than taking it into consideration or complications to be resolved. Analysts usually strive for a workable balance between rational and politically viable solutions. Although effective in the short-term, this rarely accounts for sustainable policy frameworks. Policy failures invariably come down to systemic issues in the decision-making culture.
Fixing even the basic can pose challenges having conventional methods adopted and can take prolonged advocacy for consequent results even to a certain degree. I consider, policymaking is rooted in uncritical approaches to information and assumptions about the social good, rather than evidence-based reasoning and experiential research. While the intentions are often to serve the public with true wishes and intentions, in that regard “wishful thinking is not sound policy” or “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.
To further add, seventy-odd years of independence – politics and governance have been handy tools to play in and with, and them being the top-notch implements to deal within the social sphere. This marks a close relationship between politics, governance and society producing a trickle-down effect over everything, where the policy serves as its core.
In situational politics, a leading political party which rose as a political institution for change still had to succumb to appointing influential political cronies with its known challenges, to have the chance to bring change under the thought of competent leadership. The same cake handed figures turned out to the weakest link to break as mere numbers in the parliament. Moreover, the system with its old-hat patterns has its limitations carried by the grey establishment and the vested interests of the political figures. It results in affecting the deliverance of public services and unwarranted policies and implementation.
The process of policy shaping is based on political interests driven and exploited vis-à-vis lack of political institutions and wisdom. Within our affairs of state and politicos, the institutions with its neutrality and non-neutrality, leading parties at the parliamentary edge and power dynamics in the peripheries further resulted in political instability. Rather a political turmoil, which has often caused in market instability, lack of investor’s trust – fallacy and societal commination; instead of focusing on systems of government through the formation and technical analysis of policies, activities and behaviors through strategic, innovative and experimental interventions towards socio-economic growth. Albeit, more space to work and development. As subjective as development and issues are, presumably the package remains the same with different set of government torchbearers and same establishments rather a molded institutional memory at times.
Talking of institutions, the dynamics of this idea is still explorable that the policy and administration aligned together decide the performance near of the state entities. Further, if all this shows advancement, it puts a positive mark on the governance level at large. But only if the institutions are directed at the right direction by the nature of politics. If the very policies in the beginning lack wisdom and implementation, it results in rising vulnerabilities in the society and lingering structural and institutional weaknesses. Prussian statesman Otto Von Bismarck once stated, “Politics is the art of the possible”. Over the years, people have derived different meanings of the phrase, depending on what suited them at a given time.
