Bahir Dar University

Department of Governance and

Development Studies
Teaching Material for Public Policy

Making and Analysis (GaDs 2034)

Compiled By Bahir Dar University

March 2023
 Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

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Contents
1. Concepts of Public and Policy..................................................................................................4
1.2 Definitions in Public Policy...................................................................................................7
1.3 The scope and nature of public policy..................................................................................9
1.4 NATURE OF PUBLIC POLICY...........................................................................................9
1.5 Policy Types and Its Classifications....................................................................................10
1.5.1 Classification of Public Policies....................................................................................10
1.5.1.1 SUBSTANTIVE POLICIES.....................................................................................10
1.5.1.2 PROCEDURAL POLICIES......................................................................................10
1.5.2 POLICY TYPES...............................................................................................................11
1.5.2.1 DISTRIBUTIVE POLICY.........................................................................................11
1.5.2.2 REDISTRIBUTIVE POLICY....................................................................................11
1.5.2 .3 REGULATORY POLICY........................................................................................12
1.5.2.4 Self-Regulatory..........................................................................................................12
1.5.2.5 CONSTITUENT POLICY.........................................................................................12
1.5.2.6 MATERIAL AND SYMBOLIC POLICY.................................................................12
1.6 Significance and why study Public Policy...............................................................................13
Chapter two....................................................................................................................................15
2. Policy Analysis.......................................................................................................................15
2.1 Meaning and Issues of Policy Analysis...............................................................................15
2.2 ELEMENTS OF GOOD POLICY ANALYSIS..................................................................17
2.3 PHASES OF POLICY ANALYSIS....................................................................................19
2.3.1 PERCEPTION PHASE.................................................................................................19
2.3.2 DESIGN PHASE..........................................................................................................19
2.3.3 EVALUATION PHASE...............................................................................................20
2.3.4 MAKING A CHOICE PHASE.....................................................................................20
Chapter Three................................................................................................................................21
3. Models for Policy Analysis....................................................................................................21
3.1 Process of Policy Making....................................................................................................21
3.2 Models for Policy Analysis..................................................................................................22

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 3.2.1 Elite Mass Group Model...............................................................................................22
3.2.2 SYSTEMS THEORY....................................................................................................23
3.2.3 INSTITUTIONAL THEORY.......................................................................................25
3.2.4 PROCESS THEORY....................................................................................................25
3.2.5 GROUP THEORY........................................................................................................26
3.2.6 INCREMENTAL MODEL...........................................................................................27
3.2.7 RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY.................................................................................29
3.3 Actors and Institutions in Public Policy..........................................................................34
3.3.1 Official Actors...............................................................................................................34
3.3.2 UNOFFICIAL PARTICIPANTS..................................................................................36
Chapter Five...................................................................................................................................38
5. The Process of Public Policy Making....................................................................................38
5.1 Perspectives on Policy Process............................................................................................38
5.2 The Policy Cycle- Simplified Model of the policy process.................................................38
5.3 THE STAGES OF THE POLICY CYCLE.........................................................................39
5.3.1 AGENDA-SETTING:...................................................................................................39
5.3.2 The essence of Policy Formulation...............................................................................41
5.3.3 POLICY ADOPTION STAGE.....................................................................................42
5.3.4 Policy Implementation..................................................................................................43
5.3.5 Policy Evaluation and Dimensions of Evaluation.........................................................44
Chapter 6-......................................................................................................................................47
6. Policy change and continuity.................................................................................................47
6.1 Policy Cycle Approaches.....................................................................................................48
6.2 Contingency Approaches.....................................................................................................49
6.3 Managerial Approach to Change.........................................................................................50
6.4 Policy Learning Model.........................................................................................................51
6.5 Organizational Models of Learning.....................................................................................51
6.6 Social Learning Models.......................................................................................................53
Chapter seven.................................................................................................................................53
Globalization of National Policy Making: An International Perspective.....................................53
Introduction................................................................................................................................53

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 7.1 The Impact of Global Events on National Policy Agenda...............................................54
7.2 The Need for a Global Perspective...................................................................................55
7.3 Determinants for Globalism.............................................................................................55
7.4 Policy Agenda in a Global Context..................................................................................56
Chapter 8........................................................................................................................................61
8. An Overview of Public Policy Making in Ethiopia...............................................................61
8.1 Background perspectives on the historical, politico-cultural and institutional antecedents to
public policymaking in Ethiopia................................................................................................61
8.1.1 Institutional antecedents: Haileselassie’s period...........................................................64
8.1.2 Public policy making during Dergue regime....................................................................68
8.1.3 Public policymaking under the EPRDF, 1991-2004.....................................................90

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1. Concepts of Public and Policy
Before having a look at public policy, lets have brief discussions about policy and the
public. In most cases, the term policy is used to indicate the behavior of some actor or set
of actors (l.e. official, governmental agency, or legislatures) in an area of activity with
public values. However, the historical root of policy comes from its etymological
definition. The word policy comes from the Greek, Sanskrit, and Latin Languages.
Indeed the Greek and Sanskrit root from polis (city-state) and Pur (city) evolved into the
Latin Politia (state) and later into police, which is the English word.
The policy is a broader notion than a decision because the policy covers a bundle of
decisions. More generally, it reflects an intention to decide in a particular way.

Policies consist of courses or patterns of action taken over time by governmental officials
rather than their separate, discrete decisions. A policy includes not only the decision to
adopt a law or make a rule on some topic but also the subsequent decisions that are
intended to enforce or implement the law or rule. Industrial, health and safety policy

A policy is defined as a relatively stable, purposive course of action followed by an actor

or set of actors in dealing with a problem or matter of concern. This definition focuses on
what is actually done instead of what is only proposed or intended; differentiates a policy
from a decision which is essentially a specific choice among alternatives; and views
policy as something that unfolds over time.
 Policies are mechanisms that are arranged to achieve specific goals.
 Policies are expected to show coherence (policy as a strategy), hierarchy (policy
as an institution to staff) and instrumentality (policy as a purpose).

POLICY AS AN EXPRESSION OF GENERAL PURPOSE OR DESIRED STATE

OF AFFAIRS. State of policy in this context expresses the broad purposes (or “ends”) of

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governmental activity in one field and also describes the state of affairs which would
prevail on achievement of those purpose;

POLICY AS SPECIFIC PROPOSALS. The statements of specific actions which

political organizations (interest groups, parties, the Cabinet itself) would like to see
undertaken by government;

POLICY AS DECISIONS OF GOVERNMENT. Most of the times Political Scientists

tend to focus on case study of government decisions, They may take a larger view of
policy-making, looking for broader patterns of related decisions and taking into account a
longer time span which should certainly extend to what happens after the moment of
choice and to questions of implementation and actual outcomes. However, policy is
larger than decision because it usually involves a series of more specific decisions. While
one decision in the sequence may be seen as crucial, an understanding of the larger policy
requires some study of decisions.

POLICY AS FORMAL AUTHORIZATION. When it is said of government that it has

a “policy” on a particular topic, the reference is sometimes to the specific Act of
Parliament or statutory instrument which permits or requires an activity to take place. Or
it may be said when legislation is enacted that the policy is to be carried out or
implemented;

POLICY AS A PROGRAMME. Most American students refer to policy as

programmes. A programme is defined as relating to specific sphere of government
activity involving a particular package of legislation, organization and resources. For
example, government policy can be said to consist of a number of programmes, such as:
the provision of subsidized council houses, a housing improvement programme, an
option mortgage programme, and so on. Programmes are usually seen as being the means
by which governments pursue their broader purposes or ends.

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POLICY AS OUTPUT. Here, policy is seen as what government actually delivers as
opposed to what it has promised or has authorized through legislation. Such outputs can
take many forms – the delivery of goods or services, the enforcement of rules, or the
collection of taxes. The form of outputs varies between policy areas. It is sometimes
difficult to decide what the final “output” of government policy is in a particular area. For
example, in the health service, there is a tendency to describe such items as more funds,
more trained staff, and more beds as the outputs of a policy intended to improve the
quality of medical care. In fact, these are necessary but not sufficient conditions of
improved medical care: they should be regarded as important contributory factors to the
desired output, but not the output itself. They could perhaps be described as “intermediate
outputs” rather than the final or “ultimate” output.

POLICY AS OUTCOME. Another way of looking at policy is in terms of its outcome,

that is, in terms of what is actually achieved. This distinction between outputs (the
activities of government at the point of delivery) and outcomes (the impact of these
activities) is often slurred over, and is sometimes difficult to make in practice, but it is an
important one. Thinking of policy in terms of outcomes may enable us to make some
assessment of whether the stated purpose of a policy is compatible with what the policy is
actually achieving. It will also enable us to focus on the impact of the delivery of that
policy to the targeted population

POLICY AS A THEORY OR MODEL. All policies involve assumptions about what

governments can do and what the consequences of their actions will be. These
assumptions are rarely spelt out, but policies nevertheless do imply a theory (or model) of
cause and effect.

POLICY AS A PROCESS. Policy involves a process over a much longer period of

time. It could begin from the statement of an objective, moment of decision or approval,
implementation and evaluation.

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 Furthermore, a policy may be general or specific, broad or narrow, simple or complex,
public or private, written or unwritten, explicit or implicit, discretionary or detailed, and
qualitative or quantitative.

What is public? The concept of public policy presupposes that there is a domain of life which is
not private or purely individual, but held in common. It is important to understand the concept of
“public” for a discussion of public policy. We often use such terms as “public interest”, public
sector”, “public health” and so on. The starting point is that

“Public policy” has to do with those spheres which are so labeled as “public” as opposed
to spheres involving the idea of “private”. The concept of public policy presupposes that
there is an area or domain of life which is not private or purely individual, but held in
common. The public comprises that domain of human activity which is regarded as
requiring governmental intervention or common action

1.2 Definitions in Public Policy

The systematic study of public policy began nearly half a century ago. The discipline of
public policy emerged as an important field in the early 1950s with pioneering work of
Harold Lasswell. In the mid-60s the works of David Easton also provided an intellectual
framework for understanding of the entire policy process.

Some scholars pointed out the difficulty of finding a single neat phrase to define the
concept of public policy. Therefore, there is no universally accepted definition of public
policy. However, some scholars have provided certain definitions which enable us to
have conceptual understanding about public policy.

Dye (1995) define public policy as what government choose to do or not to do. This
definition of public policy clearly shows that government is the agent of public policy
making and it highlights the fact that policies involve fundamental choice on the part of
the government to do something or not to do.

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The policy of government can be defined as its programme of action to give effect to
selected normative and empirical goals in order to address perceived problems and needs
in society in a specific ways and therefore to achieve desired changes.

Anderson(1997) on the other hand describes public policy as a relatively stable,

purposive course of action followed by an actor or setoff actors in dealing with a problem
and matter of concern. Anderson’s definitions somehow differ than dye’s definition
because it stress that set of actors rather than sole actor,(government) take policy
decisions. And it also highlights the link between the government action and a perceived
problem or concern that needs government action.

Dror (1968) offers more comprehensive definition of public policy. It’s a more complex,
dynamic and continuous process whose various components make different contributions
to it. It decides major guidelines for actions directed at the future mainly by government
organs. This definition contains the essential elements of public policy.1) it stress that
public policy making involves structures or components and its an ongoing process
taking place with in governmental institutions. 2) depend on the nature and structure
policy and policy systems institutions (legislature, executive, judiciary ) make different
contribution to public policy making.3) it asserts that public policy decisions are
legislative enactment that can be made by public institutions.

Saasa (1985) states that public policy is not only a conscious goal selecting process
undertaken by actors in the political process, but also it includes the identification of
means for achieving such public goals.
 Public policy is designed to accomplish or produce definite result.
 Public policy should distinguish between what governments intended to do and
what they actually do, policy involves what governments actually do, not what
they intended to or what they say they are doing
 Public policies are enacted and enforced by governmental institutions and actors.
 Public policy involves all level of actors, and is not necessarily restricted to
formal actors

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  Numerous government structures and institutions contribute to policy making
 Public policy is an ongoing process

1.3 The scope and nature of public policy

Public policy is what government chooses to do or not to do. It is government actions or
proposed course of action directed at achieving certain goals. Its scope includes variety of
areas and issues, such as: economy, education, health, defense, social welfare, foreign
affairs, transportation and housing. Policy analysis is the study of public policy. It is the
study of the causes, processes, formation, implementation and consequences of public
policy.

1.4 NATURE OF PUBLIC POLICY

Prior to the revolution propounded by the Behaviouralists, the study of Political Science
was largely dominated by the Traditionalists who borrowed a lot from the historical
method of analysis (descriptive method). Consequently, the pre-Second World War
political scientists did not concern themselves with the scientific study of events.
However, there has undoubtedly been an increased interest over the past twenty years in
the analysis of policy as a focus. This increased interest has been accompanied both by
grandiose claims for how “policy science” can improve the decision-making capacity and
the outputs of government, and imitative relabeling as “public policy” of traditional
courses in government or public administration.
In the past, studies on public policy have been mainly dominated by scholars of political
science and public administration and have tended to concentrate more on the content of
policy, the process of its formulation and its implementation. The study of public policy
has evolved into what is virtually a new branch of the social sciences- the so called policy
sciences (Dror, 1968:8-9). This concept of policy sciences was first formulated by Harold
Lasswell in 1951. Today, the policy sciences have gone far beyond new and naïve
aspirations for societal relevant knowledge.

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 “Policy science is a new supra-discipline, oriented towards the improvement of policy-
making and characterized by a series of paradigms different in important respects from
contemporary normal sciences”.

Policy Science was conceived as a supra-discipline – which will integrate several

disciplines, such as: Political Science, Public Administration, Economics, Psychology,
Sociology and tools of operational research and build multi-disciplinary knowledge,
skills and techniques to resolve social problems. It is aimed at improving the knowledge,
methods and analysis in policy making.

1.5 Policy Types and Its Classifications

1.5.1 Classification of Public Policies

Governments at all levels are involved in a large number and complexity of public
policies. These policies are classified by political scientists and others according to
various categories of policies. Although these categories are convenient for designating
various sets of policies and organizing discussions about them, they are not helpful in
developing generalizations, because they do not reflect the basic characteristics and
content of policies. Policies may be classified as either substantive or procedural.

1.5.1.1 SUBSTANTIVE POLICIES

Substantive policies involve what government is going to do, such as constructing
highways, paying welfare benefits, acquiring bombers, or prohibiting the retail sale of
liquor. Substantive policies directly allocate advantages and disadvantages, benefits and
costs, to people.

1.5.1.2 PROCEDURAL POLICIES

Procedural policies, in contrast, pertain to how something is going to be done or who is
going to take action. So defined, procedural policies include laws providing for the
creation of administrative agencies, determining the matters over which they have
jurisdiction, specifying the processes and techniques that they can use in carrying out
their programmes, and providing for presidential, judicial and other controls over their

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 operations. However, procedural policies may have important substantive consequences.
That is, how something is done or who takes the action may help determine what is
actually done. Frequently, efforts are made to use procedural issues to delay or prevent
adoption of substantive decisions and policies. For example, an agency’s action may be
challenged on the ground that improper procedures were followed.

1.5.2 POLICY TYPES

Differentiating policy according to its types explains the effect of such policy on the
society and the relationships among those involved in policy formation. Lowi (1972:298-
310) suggests a classification of policy issues in terms of being:-
(i) distributive,
(ii) regulatory,
(iii)redistributive, and
(iv) Constituent policy issues.
Sometimes self-regulatory

1.5.2.1 DISTRIBUTIVE POLICY

Policy issues concerned with distribution of new resources are distributive policies.
Distributive policies involve allocation of services or benefits to particular segments of
the population – individuals, groups, corporations, and communities. Some distributive
policies may provide benefits to one or a few beneficiaries. The policies involve using
public funds to assist particular groups, communities, or industries. Those who seek
benefits usually do not compete directly with one another.

1.5.2.2 REDISTRIBUTIVE POLICY

Redistributive policy issues are those which are concerned with changing the distribution
of existing resources. Redistributive policies involve deliberate efforts by the government
to shift the allocation of wealth, income, property, or rights among broad classes or
groups of the population, such as: haves and have-nots, proletariat and bourgeoisie.
Redistributive policies are difficult to enact because they involve the reallocation of
money, rights, or power. Those who possess money or power rarely yield them willingly,
regardless of how strenuously some may discourse upon the “burdens” and heavy

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 responsibility attending their possession. Example of re-distributive policy is graduated
income tax or taxing the wealthy to allocate resources to the poor.

1.5.2 .3 REGULATORY POLICY

Regulatory policy issues are those which are concerned with regulation and control of
activities. Regulatory policies impose restrictions or limitations on the behavior of
individuals and groups. That is, they reduce the freedom or discretion to act of those
regulated, whether utility companies, or agencies. When we think of regulatory policies,
we usually focus on business regulatory policies, such as those pertaining to control of
pollution or regulation of transportation industries. Among others, these sorts of policies
were the focus of the movement for deregulation. The most extensive variety of
regulatory policies, however, is that which deals with criminal behavior against persons
and property. Examples of regulatory policies are: consumer protection policies,
NAFDAC, SON, NDLEA, policies that regulate entry into businesses-National
Communication Commission, Federal Character Commission, PHCN regulatory policies
etc.

1.5.2.4 Self-Regulatory
Self-regulatory policies are similar with that of regulatory policy in that they involve the
restriction and control of some matter or group. Unlike regulatory policy, however, self-
regulatory are usually sought, supported and controlled by the regulated group as a means
of protecting and promoting the interests of its members.

1.5.2.5 CONSTITUENT POLICY

Constituent policy issues are those which are concerned with the setting-up or re-
organization of institutions. Each of these policy issues forms a different power arena.

1.5.2.6 MATERIAL AND SYMBOLIC POLICY

Public policies may also be described as either material or symbolic, depending upon the
kind of benefits they allocate. Material policies actually either provide tangible resources
or substantive power to their beneficiaries, or impose real disadvantages on those who are
adversely affected. Legislation requiring employers to pay a prescribed minimum wage,

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 appropriating money for a public-housing programme, or providing income-support
payments to farmers is material in content and effect.
Symbolic policies, in contrast, have little real material impact on people. They do not
deliver what they appear to deliver; they allocate no tangible advantages and
disadvantages. Rather, they appeal to people’s cherished values, such as: peace,
patriotism and social justice. The material – symbolic typology is especially useful to
keep in mind when analyzing effects of policy because it directs attention beyond formal
policy statements. It also alerts us to the important role of symbols in political behavior

1.6 Significance and why study Public Policy

Political scientist usually most concerned with political institutions, like legislature or
international organizations, with political process like judicial and electoral processes,
and elements of political systems such as public opinion and interest groups. However, it
doesn’t mean that they are not totally concerned with public policy. Foreign policy and
civil rights and liberties policies have traditionally been viewed as appropriate for their
attention. These too has what professor Robert H. Salisbury calls constitutional policy or
decisional rules by which subsequent policy actions are to be determined. Each helps to
shape decisions and public policy. Therefore some political scientists with normative bent
are also concerned with what government should do with the nature of correct and proper
public policies.
Students of public policy usually seek answers to such questions as the following: what
effect do urbanization and industrialization have on welfare policies? How does the
organization of congress help shape agricultural or welfare policies? What role do
interest groups play in environmental policy formation? Who does and doesn’t benefit
from current tax policies? What are the problems in implementing hazardous waste
disposal program? Although these questions are often difficult to answer, especially with
precision, they direct our attention to the actual operation of the policy process and its
societal consequences.
Generally there will be one response which is very important for the question why we
study public policy? That is, we all affect and get affected (positively and negatively) by

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public policy and thus we should know something about them. However, far beyond this
we need systematic responses for why we study public policy? So this can be framed in
terms of scientific, professional, political reasons for studying public policy.

Scientific Reasons
Public policies can be studied for gaining greater understanding of their origin, the
process by which they are developed and implemented and their consequences for the
society. This in turn increases our understanding of the political process and political
behaviour. Policy may be regarded as either a dependent or independent variables for this
sort of analysis. When it is viewed as a dependent variable, as a product of various
political factors, attention is focused on the environmental and political factors
contributing to its adoption and content. For instance how is policy affected by the
distribution of power among various levels of government? Were pressure groups and
public opinion important in the adoption of a policy? If public policy is viewed as
independent variable our focus shift to the impact of policy on the nature and operation of
political process and its environment. One may then seek answers to such questions as
these. How does policy affect/support for political system? What effects does policy have
on social wellbeing? Does policy making vary depending upon the kind of policy
involved?
Professional Reasons
Don K. Price draws a distinction between the “scientific estate” which seeks only to
discover knowledge and the “professional estate” which strives to apply the scientific
knowledge to the solution of practical social problems. Here we encounter those
practitioners of policy analysis whose numbers both inside and outside the government
have multiplied greatly in the years. Policy analysis has a practical orientation and is
concerned with determining the most efficient or best alternative for dealing with the
current problems, such as reduction of air pollution or the collection of household
garbage. A variant policy analysis is evaluation research, which assess the societal effects
of particular public policies. The policy evaluator wants to know, for instance, whether a
job training program increases the employment prospects and earnings of its enrollees
and if so, by how much.

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 Policy analysis relies heavily upon the economic theory and statistical and mathematical
techniques. Cost benefit analysis, for example, is widely used in determining the
efficiency of the proposed alternatives or actual policies. In appraising the efficiency of
government actions, the policy analysis is concerned with their impact on society
generally, on whether society as a whole gains or losses, rather than their distributional
consequences. Which particular groups receive the benefits and which pay the cost of a
policy are not of a real concern. In sum professional policy analysis tries to identify and
adopt good public policies as measured by the efficiency criterion.

Political Reason
Some political scientists don’t believe that Political scientists should strive to be neutral
or impartial in the study of public policy. Rather they concerned that the study of public
policy should be directed toward helping to ensure that governments adopt favoured
public policy to attain the right goals. They reject the notion that policy analysts should
strive to be value free, contending rather that political science should not be silent or it is
important on how to deal with current political and social problems. They engage in
policy advocacy and are undeterred by the substantial disagreement in society over what
constitute correct policy or the right goal of policy. Research engaged by policy is often
skewed by the desire to develop evidence to support their cause. Policy study in contrast
is motivated by the intent to impartial.

Chapter two
2. Policy Analysis

2.1 Meaning and Issues of Policy Analysis

Policy analysis is principally concerned with describing and investigating how and why
particular policies are proposed, adopted, and implemented. This is the theoretical side of policy
studies. A policy option must be evaluated in the light of what policy analysis reveals about its
chances of being adopted, the probable effectiveness or impact of the option, and the difficulties
of implementation.
Policy analysis is not, however, value neutral. Policies analysts want to discover which policy
proposals best fulfill important public values. Thus, policy analysis invokes such principles as

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freedom, equality, justice, decency, and peace. Indeed, politics often concerns debates about the
very meaning of these terms.
Those who would sharply separate policy analysis from fundamental social values make a grave
mistake. Policy analysis without awareness of ethical perspectives is incomplete. This is
particularly true when evaluating the impact of policy. Ethical principles must be brought to bear
on the discovery of the good and bad effects of policy. Such principles not only measure success
and failure; they also provide insight into consequences that otherwise would not be revealed.
Policy analysis carried out by political scientists can be distinguished from policy advocacy by
politicians, partisans, or interest groups. Advocacy differs from analysis, because advocacy
begins with a commitment to economic interests or to principles as interpreted by specific
ideological systems, such as liberalism, conservatism, and environmentalism. Analysis should
better equip policymakers to make policy choices while advocacy attempts to impose such
choices on others. Nevertheless, both advocacy and analysis draw upon similar principles and
goals, and the two intertwine in the real world of politics. Although ideological commitments can
bring important overlooked values to policy analysis, policy advocates are more concerned to
advance their ideology than to understand the policy process, which is the goal of policy
analysis.
Public Policy analysis, therefore, has been variously defined by scholars. Quade (1975), says it is
“any type of analysis that generates and presents information in such a way as to improve the basis
for policy-makers to exercise their judgment”. On his part Chandler and Plano, (1988:96) posit that
policy analysis involves “systematic and data-based alternative to intuitive judgments about the
effects of policy or policy options”. Ikelegbe (1994:5), defines it as the study of the causes,
processes, formation, implementation and consequences of public policy.
Dye (1976) defines policy analysis “as finding out what governments do, why they do it and
what difference it makes”. He labels policy analysis as the “thinking of man’s response” to
demands. He observes that specifically public analysis involves:
1. A primary concern with explanations rather than prescription.;
2. A rigorous search for the causes and consequences of public policies; and
3. An effort to develop and test general propositions about the causes and consequences of public
policy and to accumulate reliable research findings of general relevance.

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 Policy analysis as a technique puts data to use in, or deciding about, estimating and
measuring the consequences of public policy. Its purpose is twofold. It provides
maximum information with minimal cost about:
(i) The likely consequences of proposed policies, and
(ii) The actual consequences of the policies already adopted.
To achieve these two purposes, various methods or approaches are applied. Among the
principal methodologies are:
(a) Systems analysis and simulation;
(b) Cost benefit analysis;
(c) New approaches to budgeting;
(d) Policy experimentation; and
(e) Policy evaluation
Policy analysis is thus an inter-discipline drawing upon data from other discipline.
The common denominators in these definitions are:
 Policy analysis involves the application of systematic research and process;
 It is data-base alternative to intuitive judgments;
 Policy analysis is problem-oriented and analytical in nature;
 Policy analysis is inter-disciplinary and an academic discipline that draws on the
knowledge, methods, theories, and models developed in political science, economics,
psychology, sociology, law and philosophy. It is descriptive and prescriptive in nature,
especially as it attempts to proffer solutions to social problems.
For our purpose, policy analysis can be conceptualized as the study of the formation,
implementation and evaluation of public policy, the values of policy-makers, the
environment of the policy-making system, the cost of policy alternatives and the study of
policies for improving policy-making (meta-policy). Its goal is to improve the basis of
policy-making and generate relevant information needed to resolve social problems.
Public policy analysis is aimed at improving the basis for public policy making.

2.2 ELEMENTS OF GOOD POLICY ANALYSIS

The key elements of good policy analysis include the following (Nagel, 1984):
(i) VALIDITY
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Validity, in general, refers to being accurate. In the context of policy analysis, validity
refers to the internal consistency of logically drawing a conclusion that follows from the
goals, policies, and relations, the external consistency with empirical reality in describing
the relations between the alternative policies and the goals; the policies being considered
encompass the total set of feasible alternatives (feasibility in this context refers to capable
of being adopted and implemented by the relevant policy makers and policy appliers);
and the listed goals include all the major goals and only the goals of the relevant policy
makers in this context.
(ii) IMPORTANCE
The concept of importance can be defined in two ways. First, does the research deal with
issues on which there are big societal benefits and/or big societal costs being analysed?
Second, does the research deal with a subject matter or a set of causal hypotheses that
potentially have broad explanatory power? This is theoretical importance, as contrasted to
policy importance.
(iii) USEFULNESS
Usefulness as as its lowest level involves doing policy research that is not referred to/by
the people who make policy in the subject-matter area. At the next level is research
referred to/by policy makers orally or in a citation, even if the research cited is not on the
winning side. At a higher level is research that reinforces pre-conceived decisions. Policy
researchers should be pleased if their research accelerates a worthwhile decision that
otherwise might be delayed. At the highest level is the rare case of policy research that
converts decision makers from being negative to being sensitive, or vice versa, on an

issue.
ORIGINALITY
Originality refers to the extent to which policy research differs from previous research,
although even highly original research builds and synthesizes prior research.

(v) FEASIBILITY
Feasibility is an additional criterion for judging proposed policy research, as contrasted to
completed policy research. Feasibility is concerned with how easily research can be

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 implemented given the limited time, expertise, interest, funds, and other resources of the
researcher.

2.3 PHASES OF POLICY ANALYSIS

Regardless of the nature, type and level of policy to be analyzed, three inter-related
steps are required, namely:

2.3.1 PERCEPTION PHASE

This phase requires much interaction between policy-makers and specialist of
policy analysts. For an analytic approach, the first step is to identify whether and
why there is a probe, at all. Defining the problem involves moving from mundane
descriptions to a more abstract, conceptual plane. However, there is a general
tendency for policy analysis to accept statements on problems made by politicians
without much scrutiny to ascertain the soundness or correctness of those
statements or how they could influence the policies that emerge from them. Another
difficulty experienced in this phase of policy analysis stems from the ideological,
professional and communication differences between politicians as policy-makers
and administrators and technocrats as executors of policies.

2.3.2 DESIGN PHASE

This is basically concerned with finding alternative solutions to problems and
determining the criteria for comparing one against the other. Too often we lose sight
of the rational objectives. Paying careful attention to the objectives is very
important. Design is the process of discovering new elements and building on
known or existing elements in such a way as to produce a desired whole. It also
means constructing different alternatives to solving a particular problem given that
possible number of alternatives in any given situation is virtually unlimited. While it
is technically possible in many cases to consider all possible alternatives and their
impact, the time, cost and relevance of doing so is often prohibitive. Policy analysis
and decision-makers invariably find a way of judging which alternatives seem more
relevant than the others. Real world constraints also limit the number of feasible

19
 alternatives to a few choices. The danger, however, is that some important
alternatives may be overlooked.

2.3.3 EVALUATION PHASE

Having identified the underlying problem and having determined the alternatives
for policy choice, what are the consequences of each of the alternatives? For this, the
policy analysts will turn to a relevant model for forecasting consequences. It is
important to determine which kind of government intervention is most positive in
any particular situation. This is an intellectual process which involves predicting the
consequences of selecting each of the various alternatives and deciding which of
them to select. It may simply require the judgment of an individual expert or it may
involve using a quantitative model, such as: an elaborate computer programme that
combines in a single computation various sub-models for determining the financial
cost, environmental forecasts and goal achievements. It may also involve a variety of
processes including quantitative and qualitative methods and gaming exercises.
What is common to all evaluations is that they are done with the aid of some kind of
model which is used in an experimental fashion to try out the various alternatives. It
is necessary to predict all the effects of the proposed policies, not just the economic
effects desired by the decision-maker.
If the consequences of an alternative course of action are uncertain and especially if
the possible outcomes differ widely from one another, the analyst may wish to
develop a decision tree and evaluate the probability of each outcome. Evaluation of
the outcomes is of great importance as it reminds us to look carefully at the cost-
benefit analysis of a particular policy choice Too often, policy choices are sabotaged
by bureaucrats and interested politicians. The analysts should seek the counsel of
experts in the field.

2.3.4 MAKING A CHOICE PHASE

The last step in policy analysis relates to making the preferred choice (course of
action). The situation may be so simple for the policy maker that he can simply look
at the consequences predicted for each alternative and select the one that is best. In
contrast, it may be so complex that he will have to think of his preferences among

20
 the various possible outcomes, that is, how the world will behave in response to the
possible choices. However, it should be noted that the choice among competing
policy alternatives is complex, for the future is always uncertain. But, by enhancing
our capability to forecast the consequences of the alternative courses of action and
providing a framework for valuing those consequences, the techniques of policy
analysis lead us to better decisions.

Chapter Three
3. Models for Policy Analysis

3.1 Process of Policy Making

Policy making is the process by which the government or enterprise develops or formulates
and implements an effective strategy to meet desired objectives. Strategy in this context is
the unified comprehensive plan that is developed to reach these objectives. Public policy
process can be classified into five stages, as illustrated in figure below:
Public Policy Cycle or Process

21
 policy
policy formation
evaluation

policy policy
implementation formulation

policy adoption

3.2 Models for Policy Analysis

3.2.1 Elite Mass Group Model

In this approach, public policy can be regarded as the values and preferences of the
governing elites. The essential argument of the elite theory is that it is not the people or the
“masses” who determine public policy through their demands and action, rather, public
policy is decided by ruling elite and effected by public officials and agencies. Dye and
Zeigler, (1981) in the “Irony of Democracy” provide a summary of the elite theory:
(i) Society is divided into the few who have power and the many that do not. Only this
small number of privileged persons allocates values for society, the masses do no decide
public policy;
(ii) The few who govern are typical of the masses who are governed. The elites are drawn
disproportionately from the upper socio-economic strata of society;
(iii)Movement of the non-elite to elite positions must be slow and continuous to maintain
stability and avoid revolution. Only the non-elite who have accepted the basic elite
consensus can be admitted to governing circles;

22
(iv) The elites share a consensus on the basic values of the social system and the
preservation of the system;
(v) Public policy does not reflect demands of the masses but rather the prevailing values of
the elite. Changes in public policy will be incremental changes permit responses to events
that threaten a social system with a minimum of alteration or dislocation of the system;
(vi) Active members of the elites are subject to relatively little direct influence from
apathetic masses. The elites influence the masses more than masses influence the elite.

So state, the elite theory is a rather provocative theory of policy formation. Policy is the
product of the elite, reflecting their values and serving their ends, one of which may be a
desire to provide for the welfare of the masses. Thus, elite theory does focus our attention
on the role of leadership in policy formation and on the fact that, in any political system, a
few govern the many. However, whether the elite rule, and determine policy, with little
influence by the masses is a difficult proposition to handle.

3.2.2 SYSTEMS THEORY

Public policy may be viewed as the response of a political system to demands arising from its
environment. The political system, as defined by Easton,(1965) is composed of those identifiable and
interrelated institutions and activities in a society that make authoritative decisions (or allocations of
values) that are binding on society. In puts into the political system from the environment consist of
demands and supports. The environment consists of all those conditions and events external to the
boundaries of the political system. Demands are the claims made by individuals and groups on the
political system for action to satisfy their interests. Support is rendered when groups and individuals
abide by election results, pay taxes, obey law, and otherwise accept the decisions and actions of the
authoritative political system made in response to demands.
These authoritative allocations of values constitute public policy. The concept of feedback indicates
that public policies (or outputs) may subsequently alter the environment and the demands generated
therein, as well as the character of the political system itself. Policy outputs may produce new
demands, which lead to further policy outputs, and so on in a continuing, and never ending flow of
public policy. Political system theory is useful in understanding the policy-making process and its
value to policy analysis lies in the questions that it asks:

23
  What are the important dimensions of the environment that generate demands upon the
political system?
 What are significant characteristics of the political system that enable it to transform
demands into public policy and to preserve itself over time?
 How do environmental inputs affect the character of the political system?
 How do the characteristics of the political system affect the content of public policy?
 How do environmental inputs affect the content of public policy?
 Finally, how does public policy affect, through feedback, the environment and the character
of the political system?
The usefulness of systems theory for the study of public policy analysis is limited by its highly
general nature. It does not say much concerning how decisions are made and policy is developed
within the “black box” called that political system. Nonetheless, systems theory is a useful aid in
organizing inquiry into policy formation. However, the usefulness of the system model is limited due
to several factors. First, this model is criticized for employing the value-laden techniques of welfare
economics, which are based on the maximization of a clearly defined “social welfare function”. The
missing ingredients in the systems approach are the “power, personnel and institutions” of policy
making.

In examining these, there is need to note that decision-makers are strongly constrained by economic
factors in the environment of the political system. Secondly, the model also ignores an important
element of the policy process, namely, that the policy makers (including institutions) have also a
considerable potential in influencing the environment within which they operate. The traditional
input-output model would see the decision-making system as “facilitative” and value-free rather than
“causative” that is as a completely neutral structure. In other words, structure variations in the
systems are found to have no direct casual effect on public policy.

Finally, the extent to which the environment, both internal and external is said to have an influence
on the policy-making process is determined by the values and ideologies held by the decision-makers
in the system. It suggests that policy-making involves not only the policy content but also the policy-
makers perceptions and values. The values held by the policy-makers are fundamentally assumed to
be crucial in understanding the policy alternatives that are made.

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3.2.3 INSTITUTIONAL THEORY
The study of government institutions is one of the oldest of political science. The approach focuses
on the formal or structural aspects of an institution and can be adopted in policy analysis. An
institution is a set of regularized patterns of human behavior that persist over time. Some people,
unsophisticated, of-course, seem to equate institutions with the physical structures in which they
exist. It is their differing sets of behavior, which we often call rules, structures and the like, that can
affect decision-making and the content of public policy. Rules and structural arrangements are
usually not neutral in their impact; rather, they tend to favour some interests in society over others,
some policy results rather than others. Public policy is formulated, implemented and enforced by
government institutions.

Government institutions are given legal authority to policies and can legally impose sanctions on
violators of its policies. As such, there is a close relationship between public policy and
governmental institutions. It is not surprising, then, that political scientists would focus on the study
of governmental structures and institutions. Institutionalism, with its focus on the legal and structural
aspects can be applied in policy analysis. The structures and institutions and their arrangements and
can have a significant impact on public policy. Traditionally, the focus of study was the description
of government structures and institutions. The study of linkage between government structures and
policy outcomes remained largely unanalyzed and neglected.

The value of the institutional approach to policy analysis lies in asking what relationships exist
between institutional arrangements and the content of public policy and also in investigating these
relationships in a comparative manner. It would not be correct to assume that a particular change in
institutional structure would bring about changes in public policy. Without investigating the actual
relationship between structure and policy, it is difficult to assess the impact of institutional
arrangements on public policies.

3.2.4 PROCESS THEORY

This is similar in some ways to the systems theory. But instead of looking at policy outputs as
consequences of environmental inputs, it focuses on the process or procedure of policy
formulation. There are identifiable patterns of political activities or processes which often
culminate in the formulation of public policies. The policy processes are as follow:
 Policy formation
 Agenda setting

25
  Policy formulation
 Policy enactment
 Policy implementation and
 Policy evaluation
The approach is cyclical. However, it should be noted that a change in the process of
policy making may not bring about changes in the content of policies. It appears that
social, political, economic and technological constraints on policy makers in developing
countries are so many that changing either the formal or informal processes of decision
making may or may not change the content of public policy.

3.2.5 GROUP THEORY

According to the group theory of politics, public policy is the product of the group
struggle. As one writer states: “what may be called public policy is the equilibrium
research in this (group) struggle at any given moment, and it represents a balance which
the contending factors or groups constantly strive to weight in their favor”. Group theory
rests on the contention that interaction and struggle among groups in the central fact of
political life. A group is a collection of individuals that may, on the basis of shared
attitudes or interests, make claims upon other groups in society. It becomes a political
interest group “when it makes a claim through or upon any of the institutions of
government. And of course, many groups do just that. The individual is significant in
politics only as he is a participant in, or a representative of groups. It is through groups
that individuals seek to secure their political preferences.
Public policy, at any given time, will reflect the interest of dominant groups. As groups
gain and lose power and influence, public policy will be altered in favour of the interests
of those losing influence. Group theory, while focusing attention on one of the major
dynamic elements in policy formation, especially in pluralist societies, such as the United
States, seems both to overstate the importance of groups and to understate the
independent and creative role that public officials play in the policy process. Indeed,
many groups have been generated by public policy.
The American farm bureau federation, which developed around the agricultural extension
programme is a notable example, as is the National welfare rights organization. Public

26
 officials also may acquire a stake in particular programmes and act as an interest group in
support of their continuance. Finally, we should note that it is rather misleading and
inefficient to try to explain politics or policy formation in terms of group struggle without
giving attention to the many other factors for example, ideas and institutions that abound.
This sort of reductionist explanation should be avoided.

3.2.6 INCREMENTAL MODEL

Braybrooke and Lindblom (1963) attempted to discredit rational model of decision-making
before formulating their preferred alternative. They point out that it was not easy to distinguish
between ends and means. They suggest that the rational comprehensive model of decision-
making did not accord with facts. They argue that in the real world, the rational model or even
“bounded rationality” cannot be applied. According to them, decision-makers do not in practice
evaluate all the possible options open to them in a given situation, but choose between relatively
few alternatives.
Moreover, strategic decision-making tends to involve small-scale extensions of past
policies (incrementalism), rather than radical search. Decision-making does not normally
involve a detached planner or manager impartially sifting options to find the best
solution. In practice it necessitates seeking accommodation or compromises with interest
groups a process, they describe as “partisan mutual adjustment”. Such decision was seen
as the outcome of political bargaining. They argue that strategic decision-making often
does not proceed according to any coherent plan, but rather proceeds disjointedly
(disjointed incrementalism). Braybrooke and Lindblom thought this incremental model
has to be preferred to the rational comprehensive model of Simon and Dror.

3.2.6.1 ELEMENTS OF INCREMENTAL MODEL

Incremental model of decision-making has the following elements:
(i) The selection of goals or objectives and the empirical analysis of the action needed to attain
them are closely intertwined with rather than distinct from one another.

(ii) The decision-maker considers only some of the alternatives for dealing with a problem and
these will differ only incrementally from existing policies

27
(iii) For each alternative, only a limited number of important consequences are evaluated

(iv) The problem confronting the decision-maker is continually redefined

(v) There is no single or right solution to a problem. The test of a good decision is that various
analysts find themselves directly agreeing on it, without agreeing that the decision is the most
appropriate means to an agreed objective

(vi) Incremental decision-making is essentially remedial and is geared more to the present,
concrete social imperfections than to the promotion of future social goals.

This model of decision-making attracted so many practitioners involved in decision-making,

as it tends to suggest that what they were actually doing in their organizations (muddling
through) was right all the time. It also became attractive to political scientists because the
model involved political process and politics were treated as natural and not as regrettable
interference with rational decision-making. However, critics of incrementalism argue that the
model is not a good prescriptive model that decision makers should aspire to do better. It
cannot explain or account for spontaneous or sudden changes that take place in the
environment, especially, in the long-term strategic planning or where technological changes
are taking place that require radical decision. Thirdly, incrementalism does not seem to high-
high the role of corporate culture (strategy as perspective) perhaps on decision-making, as it
filters out unacceptable choices.

Fourthly, the anti-rational position of incrementalism leaves no room for the development and
application of rational analysis, especially with contributions from modern analytical tools and
techniques, for example, linear programming probability decision trees, forecasting, simulation
etc.
Finally, even as a descriptive model of the public sector, it does not always fit some
changes so not all incremental, but involve dramatic shifts, such as, the re-organization of
Natural education Policy in Nigeria Universal Basic Education Scheme (6-3-3-4).
However, in his later work Lindblom (1968) countered this criticism and asserted that
incrementalism was possible to achieve a radical shift as “one person’s incremental
decision could be another man’s radical change”. He conceded the argument for forward
planning and application of analysis using analytical techniques.

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3.2.7 RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY
Rational choice theory is best characterized as a school or an approach to understanding the
dynamics of public policy; it is a “family of theories” rather than a single theory (Green and
Shapiro 1994, 28). The likes of game theoretical accounts of strategic interactions (Axelrod
1984), social choice critiques of the impossibility of a democratic aggregation of interests
(Arrow 1951), and public choice applications of economics to politics (Niskanen 1971; Olson
1982) all sit shoulder to shoulder under the auspices of rational choice. In this opening section,
we identify a set of common building blocks that arguably provide the foundations that hold such
mainstream rationalist approaches together; foundations that have however been stretched or
applied over time with varying levels of consistency as we shall discover below. Our first
common building block is the assumption of rationality, which posits that individuals in the
policy process are rational, and that the behavior of agents is best explained by imputing
rationality on to them (Dowding and King 1995, 1). We then go on to examine further heroic
qualities associated with individuals in the form of consistent and rank-ordered preferences
before addressing the premises of methodological individualism and deductive reasoning.
The rational-choice theory, which is sometimes called social-choice, public-choice, or formal
theory, originated with economists and involves applying the principles of micro-economic
theory to the analysis and explanation of political behavior (or nonmarket decision-making). It
has now gained many adherents among political scientists.
Perhaps the earliest use of rational-choice theory to study the political process is Anthony

Downs's Economic Theory of Democracy. In this influential book, Downs assumes that voters
and political parties act as rational decision-makers who seek to maximize attainment of their
preferences. Parties formulated whatever policies would win them most votes, and voters sought
to maximize the portion of their preferences that could be realized through government action. In
attempting to win elections, political parties moved toward the center of the ideological spectrum
to appeal to the greatest number of voters and maximize their voting support. Thus, rather than
providing voters with "meaningful alternatives," parties will become as much alike as possible,
thereby providing an "echo rather than a choice."

29
 Let us now look more closely at the major components of rational-choice theory. One of its
basic axioms is that political actors, like economic actors, act rationally in pursuing their own
self-interest. Thus economist James Buchanan, a leading proponent of rational-choice theory,
contends that politicians are guided by their self-interest rather than an altruistic commitment to
such goals as statesmanship or the national interest. "This should be no surprise," says Buchanan,
"because governments are made up of individuals, and individuals operate from self-interest
when they are engaged in a system of exchange, whether this is in the market economy or in

politics." Individuals who are engaged in decision-making exchanges or transactions, such as

voting, also have preferences that vary from person to person. Being rational, individuals are
able to comprehend and rank their preferences from most to least desired. In making decisions
(whether economic or political), they are guided by these preferences and will seek to maximize
the benefits they gain. In short, people are self-interested utility maximizers, not the uninformed,
confused, or irrational choice-makers often depicted in analyses of political behavior.
A second basic axiom of rational-choice theory involves methodological individualism. The
individual decision-maker is the primary unit of analysis and theory. The individual's preferences
or values are assumed to be more important than other values—collective, organizational, or
social. Conversely, rational-choice theorists argue that the actions of organizations and groups
can be satisfactorily explained in terms of the behavior of a model individual. Nothing
substantial will be lost by so doing in explaining the behavior of all persons.
For example, a rational-choice explanation of why Congress delegates discretionary power to
administrative agencies begins with the assumption that the preference of members of Congress

is to get reelected. To this end, legislators delegate power to agencies, knowing that in exercising
that power the agencies will create problems for their constituents. Legislators will then be called
on by their constituents to assist them with their bureaucratic problems and, in return for
assistance, the grateful constituents will vote to reelect the legislators. The pursuit of self-interest
by the members of Congress thus explains the delegation of power and the growth of
bureaucracy.
Some rational-choice theorists have explored the effects of incomplete or imperfect

information and uncertainty on policymaking. Political decision-makers are said to be possessed

of differing amounts of information (a condition called information asymmetry) and are uncertain

30
about the outcomes or consequences of laws and policies when they are implemented. In
Congress, legislative committee members, as policy specialists and the basic developers of
legislation, are best informed about the relationship between a proposed policy and its likely
consequences. In comparison, the rank-and-file members of Congress, who make the final
decisions on the enactment of legislation, have only limited knowledge of the policy-
consequences relationships. Conceivably this information asymmetry would permit committee
members to act strategically and secure the enactment of policies of benefit primarily to
themselves (and their constituents).
Various rules and practices in Congress, however, help ensure that legislators will have
incentives both to specialize in analyzing public problems and Grafting policies and to make
information generally available to the members of Congress. The problem is to identify the
institutional arrangements that help reduce uncertainty. This "information-theories" variant of
rational choice continues to assume that legislators are utility maximizers with differing interests.
Their utility, however, is determined by policy outcomes rather than by policies per se. About
outcomes, as we have seen, there is uncertainty.
THE ASSUMPTION OF RATIONALITY
Within rational choice accounts of public policy, individuals are characterized as instrumental
actors, pursing courses of actions “not for their own sake, but only insofar as they secure desired,
typically private ends” (Chong 1996, 39). In this instance, rationality is entwined with utility-
maximization. Rational individuals are those individuals who, when faced with distinct courses
of action or policy options, choose the feasible course of action, which is most likely to
maximise their own utility. Rationality thus emerges from an actor’s capacity to calculate and
attach costs and benefits to available policy options, and to select the course of action that best
maximises her own utility (Dunleavy1991, 3; Majone 1989, 13; Elster 1986, 4). Policy actors are
constructed as egotistical, self-regarding instrumental actors, “choosing how to act on the basis
of the consequences for their personal welfare (or that of their immediate family)” (Dunleavy
1991, 3). As such, mainstream rational choice lends itself towards explanations of policy
outcomes grounded in the goal-oriented action of individuals (MacDonald 2003, 552) where the
desires, beliefs, and preferences of individual actors are identified as the causes of their actions
(Green and Shapiro, 1994: 20). Of course, such rational behavior by individuals will not
necessarily produce positive collective outcomes. Rational utility-maximizing individuals will

31
and do deliver collectively unintentional outcomes or socially irrational outcomes (Levi 1997,
20) as the “tragedy of the commons” demonstrates (Hardin 1969). Rational choice thus explains
the irrational collective outcomes of the individual actions of rational actors.

RANK-ORDERED AND CONSISTENT PREFERENCES

As we suggested above, this assumption of rationality hinges upon a number of heroic qualities
attached to individual actors, not least that rational actors possess, even when faced with
complex situations, the capacity (in terms of information, time, and objectivity) to choose the
optimum course of action open to them (Ward 2002, 68). Importantly, individual rational actors
must, if the assumption of rationality is to hold, possess preferences or wants that are ranked-
ordered, and consistent in that they are both transitive and stable over time. First, the rank-
ordering of preferences asserts that individuals are able to establish a hierarchy of wants or
preferences; preferences of course have to be comparable. Second, the condition of transitivity
establishes a particular consistency of preferences in that if an individual prefers oranges (x) to
pears (y) and pears (y) to apples (z), she will prefer oranges (x) to apples (z). Under such
conditions, preferences are said to be transitive. Finally, an individual’s preferences are taken to
be both stable over time (at least in the short-term), and to be given. In terms of this latter
condition, that which assumes the given-ness of preferences, mainstream rationalist accounts are
simply saying that for the purposes of explanation, they are not overly concerned with the origins
of individuals’ preferences. For Shepsle and Bonchek, rational choice accounts “take people as
we find them,” less concerned with “why they want what they want” (1997, 17).
METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM
Mainstream rational choice builds its explanations of policy outcomes on the actions of
individuals, privileging the role of actors over and beyond that of social structures. Social
structures are attributed no “independent status apart from the individuals who constitute them.
Only actors choose, prefer, believe, learn and so on: society does not act independently of them”
(Lichbach 2003, 32–33). This privileging of actors locates the explanation of macro-level
phenomena at the micro-level of the individual, or at the aggregated behavior of individuals (Van
Thiel 2004, 180). Social structures are thereby conceptualized through the intentional behavior of
individuals, interpreted as the aggregate result of the calculations and utility-maximizing
strategies of individual actors, such that institutions become “instrumental products used by

32
individuals to maximise their respective utilities” (Blyth 2002, 19). As such, rational choice
stresses the production of causal mechanisms, underplayed in structural and functionalist
explanations (Chong 1996, 42–43). For, as Laver argues, “the primitive motivational
assumptions” of rational choice “relate to the individual as a self-contained unit of analysis”
DEDUCTIVE REASONING
In applying deductive reasoning, rational choice explanations of policy outcomes advance
through first establishing sets of propositions and statements about real world phenomena and
the rational behavior of individuals, and then testing these propositions through comparison with
events and the actual behavior of actors (Laver 1997, 4). Indeed, Laver (1997) makes an
emblematic defence of the value of what he calls the a priori approach of rational choice over
and beyond predominant empirical approaches to policy analysis (for another defense see Ward
2002, 69–70). Such predominant empirical approaches, Laver argues, simply extrapolate
generalized propositions about political behavior from “systematic observations of what real
people actually do,” which “in the last analysis more or less says that the world is as it is because
that’s how it is” Laver argues, however, that the very value of deductive reasoning in rational
choice accounts lies in the fact that the explanation of political outcomes derives from
motivational assumptions defined in another realm, that of the individual.
RATIONAL COMPREHENSIVE MODEL
The rational comprehensive model has the following elements:
(i) The decision-maker is confronted with a given problem that can be separated from other
problems or at least considered meaningfully in comparison with them.

(ii) The goals, values or objectives that guide the decision-maker are classified and ranked
according to their importance

(iii) The various alternatives for dealing with the problems are examined

(iv) The consequence (Cost and benefits) that would follow from the selection of each
alternatives are investigated

(v) Each alternative and its attendant consequences can be compared with the other alternatives

(vi) The decision-maker will choose that alternative and its consequences that maximize the
attainment of his goals, values and objectives.

33
However, these assumptions are difficult to attain in real world. There are many barriers
associated with rationality. In rational comprehensive model, all information required for
alternative decisions are not available. All alternatives cannot be possibly obtained and
consequences predicted. Beside, most societal values do not reach the decision agenda because
of powerful elites and interest groups. Hence, the model is criticized by scholars as being too
idealistic and narrow because it neglects some political variables of decision making.

3.3 Actors and Institutions in Public Policy

3.3.1 Official Actors

The official Actors in public policy process are those who are legally empowered to formulate
public policy. They are those who occupy the formal offices prescribed by the political
community as authoritative. They are members of the legislature, local councilors, ministers,
senior officials and judges. Since governments at the national level are formed usually by the
leaders of the political party with the majority of seats in the legislature, it is important to
understand how the parliamentary leadership is likely to behave. Unofficial Actors include the
political parties, interest groups and citizens. In this unit, we shall examine each official and
unofficial actor in public policy making process.

3.3.1.1 EXECUTIVE
One dimension of the study of policy-making attempts to assess the role of the executive.
Modern governments everywhere rely on executive leadership both in policy formation and
policy implementation. In the United Kingdom with parliamentary system operating cabinet
government, the governments in most cases rely on their back-benchers to provide them with the
majorities necessary to conduct government business. The executive arm of government has a
legal authority in public policy formulation. It is one the official Actors. The executive councils
collectively reach decisions on various policy matters placed before them at cabinet meetings.
For example, various policy initiatives emanate from ministries, departments and agencies of
government.

34
3.3.1.2 LEGISLATURE
The legislature also plays a notable role in policy-making. In democratic political environment
implementation of most policies can only be commenced when the appropriate legislation has been
put in place and money appropriated in the budget for the programmes and initiatives requiring
legislation go through assembles. These assemblies wield a lot of power as policy proposals
submitted by the executive are subjected to substantial amendments in the assembly. The national
assembly performs oversight function of largely done through select committee, which has the power
servant’s ministers of their ministries. The public accounts committee in the national assembly
monitors public expenditures of various ministries and agencies.

3.3.1.3 EXPERTS/TECHNOCRATS IN ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCIES/Bureaucrats

Top Administrators or appointed officials play major role in policy implementation. Policy is
laid down by the legislature or the political authorities, who are vested with the power of giving
policy the legal authority. The legislature lays down a policy in general terms which is usually
expressed in the form of acts and laws. In order to give more precise expression to these acts and
laws, the administrative arm of the government plays an important role in policy-making also.
But, in the main, the administrative arm does not legally possess the power of making a policy; it
assists in policy making. Its responsibility lies in the sphere of policy implementation.
In summary, experts and technocrats in administrative agencies play roles in policy formation
process. They supply information and help to articulate (at both the macro and micro levels, on
the hand, and at the objective and subjective levels, on the other) the broad objectives that guide
policy directions as a totality of management. The advice of experts can also lead to the initiation
of policies by decision-makers or politicians, apart from the vision of the government itself in
addition, experts assist with the scientific management of the policy process through policy
formulation and analysis.

3.3.1.4 LAW COURTS

In countries where the courts have the power of judicial review like Nigeria and United States of
America, courts play an important role in policy formation. The courts have often greatly affected the
nature and content of public policy through exercise of the powers of judicial review and statutory
interpretation in cases brought before them. In any political system, the courts or judiciary participate
in policy-making process indirectly. Courts are approached to interpret and decide the meaning of
legislative provisions that often generally stated and permit conflicting interpretations. Any judge

35
confronted with a choice between two or more interpretations and applications of a legislative act,
executive order or constitutional provision must choose from among them because the decision has
to be given or the controversy must be ended. And when the judge does so, his or her
interpretation becomes policy for the specific litigants. When a court accepts one interpretation
or a decision is accepted by other courts, the court has made a policy for all jurisdiction in which
that view prevail.

3.3.2 UNOFFICIAL PARTICIPANTS

Beside the official Actors in public policy making, many others participate in the public policy
process. These units influence policy formation without possessing legal authority to make
binding policy decisions. These unofficial Actors include:

3.3.2.1 POLITICAL PARTIES

In modern societies generally, political parties perform the function of “interest aggregation”,
that is, they seek to convert the particular demands of interest groups into general policy
alternatives. The way in which the parties “aggregate” interests is affected by the number of
desire of the parties to gain widespread electoral support will force both the parties to include in
their policy proposals popular demands and avoid alienating the most important social groups

3.3.2.2 INTEREST GROUPS

While the executive (cabinet ministries, agencies/parastatals) plays the central role in policy-
making, the need for consensus building in the process dictates that various interest groups be
carried along these groups contribute inputs in various ways into the policy-making process and
use covert and overt pressures to influence directly or indirectly the policies of government at
any particular point in time. Through various channels, they contribute inputs into the debates
and discussions that go on before a particular issue is crystallized as policy decision of
government. For example, deregulation of petroleum product policies. Various interest groups,
such as labour union, media, private sectors/ professional bodies, non-governmental
organizational and civil society organizations were given the opportunity to contribute towards
shaping the desired policy.

3.3.2.3 INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS

Since democratic governments are representative governments, it is often said that citizens are,
therefore, indirectly represented in all policy making. In an abstract sense, this is true, but
36
concretely, this aphorism means very little. Citizens’ participation in policy making, even in
democratic countries, is very negligible. Many people do not exercise their franchise or engage
in party politics. They neither join pressure groups nor display any active interest in public
affairs. Even, while voting, voters are influenced comparatively little by policy considerations.
However, despite such political attitudes of great majority of citizens, some still participate
directly in decision making through demands to government.

3.3.2.4 INFLUENCE OF MEDIA

A prerequisite of democracy is free media of communication. The media channel information
between the citizen and government. They communicate the information to the citizen s about the
decisions the governments have taken. In this way, the media help shape their reactions to each
other’s decisions. By publicizing specific causes, the media act as the most important source of
information for the government on the public’s reactions to contemporary issues. However, if the
citizen is to make rational decisions about public policy, the media should be of a high standard of
reliability. They should be seen as biased against government of the day, but offer constructive
criticisms when necessary. The media can influence public opinions especially where the government
is responsive and responsible to the public. It is only then they can be influential in determining
policy.

3.3.2.5 Think tanks

A think tank is a research organization whose objective is to influence the policy process through
the provision of information and ideas, either directly to government or by informing the
community more generally. Think tanks are likely to have quite different interests, resources and
objectives, but a shared theme appears to be the desire to introduce research and ideas into the
public policy process with a view to influencing the outcome of that process. Measuring and
understanding the impact of think tanks is difficult, however, as Ian Marsh has suggested:
[t]he complexity of the policy-making process and the absence of clear benchmarks for
effectiveness complicates the task of assessment. Think tanks are one institutional actor
in a complex system made up of a variety of organisations and processes. It is no easy
task to determine the contribution of particular actors to particular outcomes or to judge
the adequacy of a whole system.

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Chapter Five

5. The Process of Public Policy Making

5.1 Perspectives on Policy Process

From the year 1950 the field of policy analysis has been strongly connected with a perspective
that considers policy process through a sequence of discrete stage or phrases. The policy cycle
framework or perspective has served as a basic template to systematize and compare the
diverse debates, approaches and models in the field and to assess the individual contribution
of the perspective approach to the discipline.

5.2 The Policy Cycle- Simplified Model of the policy process

The idea of modeling the policy process in terms stage and phases was first put forward by
Lasswell. In his attempt to establish a multidisciplinary and perspective policy science,
Lasswell introduced a model of the policy process comprised of seven stages: Intelligence,
Promotion, Prescription, Advocacy, Invocation, Termination and Appraisal. Even though the
sequence of this model has been contested, the model itself has been highly successful in
providing basic framework for the field of policy studies and became the starting point of a
variety of typologies in policy process. Subsequently, a number of various stages typology
have been put forward by various scholars.

Today, the differentiation between agenda setting, policy formulation, decision making,
implementation and evaluation has become the conventional way to describe the chronology
of a policy process. Lasswell’s understanding of the model of policy process was more
prescriptive and normative than descriptive and analytical. His sequence of the different
stages had been designed like a problem solving model and accords with other prescriptive
rational models of planning and decision making developed in organization theory and public
administration.

Still stages of public policy were conceived as evolving in a chronological order- first
Problems are identified and put on the agenda, next policies are developed, adopted,

38
 implemented, and finally these policies will be assessed against their effectiveness and
efficiency and either terminated and or restarted. Combined with Easton’s input-output model
this stages perspective was then transformed into a cyclical model, the so-called policy cycle.
The cyclical perspective emphasizes feed-back (loop) processes between outputs and inputs of
policy-making, leading to the continual perpetuation of the policy process. Outputs of policy
processes at t1 have an impact on the wider society and will be transformed into an input
(demands and support) to a succeeding policy process at t 2. The integration of Easton’s input
output model also contributed to the further differentiation of the policy process.

While the policy cycle framework takes into account the feedback between different elements of
the policy process (and therefore draws a more realistic picture of the policy process than earlier
stages models), it still presents a simplified and ideal-type model of the policy process, as most
of its proponents will readily admit. Under real-world conditions, policies are, e.g., more
frequently not the subject of comprehensive evaluations that lead to either termination or
reformulation of a policy. Policy processes rarely feature clear-cut beginnings and endings. At
the same time, policies have always been constantly reviewed, controlled, modified, and
sometimes even terminated; policies are perpetually reformulated, implemented, evaluated, and
adapted. But these processes do not evolve in a pattern of clear-cut sequences; instead, the stages
are constantly meshed and entangled in an ongoing process. Moreover, policies do not develop in
a vacuum, but are adopted in a crowded policy space that leaves little space for policy
innovation.

5.3 THE STAGES OF THE POLICY CYCLE

5.3.1 AGENDA-SETTING:
Policy-making presupposes the recognition of a policy problem. Problem recognition itself
requires that a social problem has been defined as such and that the necessity of state
intervention has been expressed. The second step would be that the recognized problem is
actually put on the agenda for serious consideration of public action (agenda-setting). The
agenda is nothing more than “the list of subjects or problems to which governmental officials,
and people outside the government closely associated with those officials, are paying some

39
serious attention at any given time”. The government’s (or institutional) agenda has been
distinguished from the wider media and the overall public (or systemic) agenda. While the
government’s (formal and informal) agenda presents the center of attention of studies on agenda-
setting, the means and mechanisms of problem recognition and issue selection are tightly
connected with the way a social problem is recognized and perceived on the public/media
agenda. Problem recognition and agenda-setting are inherently political processes in which
political attention is attached to a subset of all possibly relevant policy problems. Actors within
and outside government constantly seek to influence and collectively shape the agenda by taking
advantage of rising attention to a particular issue, dramatizing a problem, or advancing a
particular problem definition). The involvement of particular actors (e.g., experts), the choice of
institutional venues in which problems are debated and the strategic use of media coverage have
been identified as tactical means to define issues. While a number of actors are involved in these
activities of agenda control or shaping, most of the variables and mechanisms affecting agenda-
setting lie outside the direct control of any single actor.
Agenda-setting results in a selection between diverse problems and issues. It is a process of
structuring the policy issue regarding potential strategies and instruments that shape the
development of a policy in the subsequent stages of a policy cycle. If the assumption is accepted
that not all existing problems could receive the same level of attention.

Systematic research on agenda-setting first emerged as part of the critique of pluralism in the
United States. One classic approach suggested that political debates and, hence, agenda-setting,
emerge from conflict between two actors, with the less politically powerful actor seeking to raise
attention to the issue (conflict expansion). Others suggested that agenda-setting results from a
process of filtering of issues and problems, resulting in non-decisions (issues and problems that
are deliberately excluded from the formal agenda).

The crucial step in this process of agenda-setting is the move of an issue from its recognition—
frequently expressed by interested groups or affected actors—up to the formal political agenda.
This move encompasses several sub-stages, in which succeeding selections of issues under
conditions of scarce capacities of problem-recognition and problem-solving are made.

40
While problem recognition and problem definition in liberal democracies are said to be largely
conducted in public, in the media or at least among domain-specific professional (public)
communities, the actual agenda-setting is characterized by different patterns in terms of actor
composition and the role of the public. The outside-initiation pattern, where social actors force
governments to place an issue on the systemic agenda by way of gaining public support, presents
but one of different types of agenda-setting. However in the policy process agenda setting will be
carried out without public input when interest groups have direct access to government agencies
and are capable of putting topics on the agenda without major interference or even recognition of
the public. The agriculture policy in certain European countries would be a classic example for
such inside-initiation patterns of agenda-setting. Such kind of agenda setting usually comes out
from the government bodies without significant inputs from the people.
Another pattern has been described as the mobilization of support within the public by the
government after the initial agenda-setting has been accomplished without a relevant role for
non-state actors (e.g., the introduction of the Euro or, rather, the campaign prior the
implementation of the new currency).
Despite the existence of different patterns of agenda-setting, modern societies are characterized
by a distinctive role of the public/media for agenda-setting and policy-making; especially when
novel types of problems (like risks) emerge.
Frequently, governments are confronted with forced choice situations where they simply cannot
ignore public sentiment without risking the loss of legitimacy or credibility, and must give the
issue some priority on the agenda. While the mechanisms of agenda-setting do not determine the
way the related policy is designed and implemented, policies following so-called knee-jerk
responses of governments in forced choice situations tend to be combined with rather intrusive or
coercive forms of state interventions. However, these policies frequently have a short life cycle
or are recurrently object of major amendments in the later stages of the policy cycle after public
attention has shifted towards other issues.

5.3.2 The essence of Policy Formulation

In this stage of the policy cycle, expressed problems, proposals, and demands are transformed
into government programs. Policy formulation and adoption includes the definition of objectives
— what should be achieved with the policy—and the consideration of different alternative
actions. Some authors differentiate between formulation (of alternatives for action) and the final

41
adoption (the formal decision to take on the policy). Because policies will not always be
formalized into separate programs and a clear-cut separation between formulation and decision-
making is very often impossible, we treat them as sub-stages in a single stage of the policy cycle.
Policy formulation process includes the following:
(i) The identification of the policy issues/problems

(ii) Specification of objectives/targets

(iii) Development of options/strategies

(iv) Selection of preferred option/strategies

(v) Policy decision-making

(vi) Design of implementation strategy; and

(vii) Policy review and reformulation

Policy formulation involves the development of pertinent and acceptable proposed courses of action
for dealing with the public problem. Several competing policy proposal for dealing with a given
problem may be presented. Policy formulation doesn’t always culminate in a law, executive order or
administrative rule. Policy makers may decide not to take positive action on some problem, decide to
leave it alone, to let matters themselves out.
Policy formulation differs from policy formation. Policy formation usually refers to the total process
creating or forming a policy whereas policy formulation refers more narrowly to the development a
proposed course action for handling a problem.
Policy formulation as a technical process involves two different sort of activities. One, what
should be done about a particular problem. The second type of activity comes into play.
Legislation and administrative rules must be drafted which will appropriately carry the agreed
upon general principles and statements.

5.3.3 POLICY ADOPTION STAGE

Legitimating of public policy is another sub-stage in policy formulation. This process means
having a particular proposal authorized. Formulators do not think only of problems and how to
solve them, but whether the course of action is feasible and getting it authorized. Decision or
choices of policy requires some authoritative ratification as an aspect of the principle of public

42
accountability. While decision may be effectively reached at one level, they will often be
authorized and confirmed at another. Therefore, some strategic considerations are directed
toward the legitimization of process – building support for a proposed course of action,
maintaining support held previously, deciding where compromises can be made; calculating
when and where to make the strongest play and controlling information flow to advantages.
This is often done by the notion of majority lobby building in legislature. In other words, a
course of action is legitimate when a majority in both houses of the legislature (National
Assembly) approves and the chief Executive affixes his signature to the measure. So, given the
necessity for building majority in a given course of action, formulators of policies must consider
all factors involved in its legitimating process. However, the most formal adoption strategy is
one of proposal, legislative approval and Presidential (Executive) signature. Although, there are
other adoption strategies that exist in government

5.3.4 Policy Implementation

Policy implementation is the process of assembling resources (including people), allocating
resources and utilizing resources (operations), in order to achieve policy objectives. The
administrative agencies are the primary implementers of public policy, but the judiciary and
legislature are also involved. The legislature may over-rule the decision of the executive by two-
third majority, while the Courts interpret statutes and administrative rules and regulations.
Agencies also make “administrative laws” through delegated legislative authority by the
legislature when implementing statutes passed by the congress or National Assembly. The
application of a public policy passed by the Legislature can change the nature of the policy itself,
as implementation often affects policy content.
After a policy has been set, it must be put into effect. An obvious point, of course, except that
much political science stopped at the point where government reached a decision, ignoring the
myriad difficulties which arise in policy execution. Probably the main achievement of policy
analysis has been to direct attention to these problems of implementation. Even today, putting the
policy into practice is sometimes still regarded as a technical matter of administration. Turning a
blind eye to implementation issues can be politically convenient for ministers but is always
dangerous and can be damaging.
The decision on a specific course of action and the adoption of a program does not guarantee that
the action on the ground will strictly follow policy makers’ aims and objectives. The stage of

43
execution or enforcement of a policy by the responsible institutions and organizations that are
often, but not always, part of the public sector, is referred to as implementation. Policy
implementation is broadly defined as “what happens between the establishment of an apparent
intention on the part of the government to do something, or to stop doing something, and the
ultimate impact in the world of action”. This stage is critical as political and administrative
action at the frontline are hardly perfectly controllable by objectives, programs, laws, and the
like. Therefore, policies and their intentions will very often be changed or even distorted; its
execution may be delayed or even blocked altogether.
An ideal process of policy implementation would include the following core elements:
 Specification of program details (i.e., how and by which agencies/organizations should
the program be executed? How should the law/program be interpreted?);
 Allocation of resources (i.e., how are budgets distributed? Which personnel will execute
the program? Which units of an organization will be in charge for the execution?);
 Decisions (i.e., how will decisions of single cases be carried out?).
The detection of the implementation stage as a missing link in the study of policymaking can be
regarded as one of the most important conceptual innovations of policy research in the 1970s.
Earlier, implementation of policies was not recognized as a separate stage within or element of
the policy-making process. What happens after a bill becomes a law was not perceived as a
central problem—not for the decision makers and, therefore, also not for policy analysis. The
underlying assumption was that governments pass laws, and this is where the core business of
policy-making ends.
The implementation of policy usually carried out by legislature, court, pressure groups ,
community organizations, Administration organizations or bureaucrats etc.

5.3.5 Policy Evaluation and Dimensions of Evaluation

This is the last stage of the policy process. It involves an attempt to determine whether a policy
has actually worked. It is essential to monitor formulated policies during implementation.
Monitoring involves the assessment of progress on policies, programmes and projects in
comparison with what was initially planned. Its object is the detection of deviations, so that
corrective measures could be applied. Evaluation, on the other hand, is concerned more with
results of a policy or programme. It tries to determine the relevance, effectiveness and impact of
policy and programme activities in the light of their objectives. It is also concerned with the

44
efficiency within which programmes are implemented. Such an evaluation can lead to additional
policy formulation to correct deficiencies.
Generally speaking, policy evaluation is concerned with the estimation, assessment and appraisal
of a policy. Policy evaluation involves the contents, implementation and effect of the policy. As
a functional activity evaluation can or does occur throughout the policy process not simply as it’s
a final stage. For instance an attempt is usually made to determine the consequence of various
policy alternatives for dealing with the problem prior to the adoption of the policy.
Anderson, Brady and Bullock, (1978) categorized evaluation in two ways:
 Political evaluation to assess the political feasibility of the policy;
 Systematic evaluation seeks to objectively measure the impact of the policies and
determine how well objectives are actually accomplished. Such an evaluation focuses on
the effects which a policy has on the problem to which it is directed. Systematic
evaluation must address question related with; is this policy achieving its objectives?
What are the cost and benefits? Who are its beneficiaries? What happed as a consequence
of the policy that wouldn’t have happened with its absence? Systematic evaluation gives
the policy makers, people and other interested body about the actual impact of policy.

Policy-making is supposed to contribute to problem solving or at least to the reduction of the

problem load. During the evaluation stage of the policy cycle, these intended outcomes of
policies move into the center of attention plausible normative rationale that, finally, policy-
making should be appraised against intended objectives and impacts forms the starting point of
policy evaluation. But, evaluation is not only associated with the final stage in the policy cycle
that either ends with the termination of the policy or its redesign based on modified problem
perception and agenda-setting.
At the same time, evaluation research forms a separate sub-discipline in the policy sciences that
focuses on the intended results and unintended consequences of policies. Evaluation studies are
not restricted to a particular stage in the policy cycle; instead, the perspective is applied to the
whole policy-making process and from different perspectives in terms of timing (ex ante, ex
post).

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5.3.5.1 Problems in Policy Evaluation
The most useful form policy evaluation for policy makers, administrators as well as for policy
critics, who wish to a factual basis for their position, is systematic evaluation that tries to
determine the cause and effect relationships and rigorously measure the impact of policy.
Determining whether a policy program is doing what is supposed to do is not an easy
straightforward task.
A. Uncertainty over policy goals
When goals of a policy are unclear, diffused or diverse, determining the extent to which they
have been attained becomes a difficult and frustrating task. This situation is often the product of
policy adoption process.
B. Difficult in determining causality
Systematic evaluation requires that societal changes must be demonstrably caused a policy
action. The inner fact that when action A is taken condition B develops doesn’t necessarily mean
that the cause and effect relationship exists. Other actions or variables may have been the actual
causes of conditions B. therefore; it is usually difficult to determine causality between policy
action and other societal changes which are supposed to be the consequences of the policy.
C. Diffuse Policy Impact
Policy actions may affect groups other than those at whom they are specifically directed. A
welfare program for example may affect not only the poor but also others such as tax payers, low
income people who are not receiving welfare benefits. The effect on those groups may be
symbolic or material. Tax payers may grumble that there hard earned dollars are going to support
those too lazy. Some low income working people may decide to go on welfare rather than
continue working at unpleasant jobs for low wages. So far as the poor who receive material
benefit are concerned, what effects do benefits have on their initiative and self-reliance, on
family solidarity and on maintenance of social order? The effect of some policy or programs may
be very broad and long range in nature.
D. Difficulties in Data Acquisition
Shortage of accurate and relevant statistical data and other information may handicap the policy
evaluator. Therefore, absence of adequate data and information makes difficult the policy
evaluation process and it also makes the policy evaluation very incomplete.
E. Official Resistance

46
The evaluation of policy, the measurement of policy impact involves making of judgments on
the merit of policy. This is true even if the policy evaluators are experts or university researchers.
Agency and program officials are going to be concerned about the possible political
consequences of the evaluation.
F. Limited Time Perspective
Public officials and other often requires quick results from governmental programs, even social
and educational programs whose effects may take longer time. As a result short run evaluation of
programs may be unfavorable. If time dimension is ignored in evaluation studies the result may
be flawed and neglect important impacts. The pressure for rapid feedback concerning a policy
can create a dilemma for the evaluator.
G. Evaluation Lack Impact
Once completed the valuation of the program or policy may be ignored or attacked as
conservative or unsound on various grounds. For example it may be alleged that the evaluation is
poorly designed, the data used were inadequate or the findings are inconclusive.
Chapter 6-
6. Policy change and continuity
Introduction

Here an attempt is made to discuss various approaches to studying the way in which policy
changes takes place. As it is known policy evaluation involves some kind of feedback in to the
policy process which results in change in policy.

Evaluation often acts as an engine of policy change. There are generally two aspect of analyzing
change.

i. How does change in policy goals, purposes, and priorities take place?
ii. What is the relationship between changing goals, values and etc. and organizational
context of policy and vice versa?

Three approaches have been suggested to examine these two dimensions of policy change:

i. Policy Cycle Approaches.

ii. Organizational approaches.

47
 iii. Policy change and policy learning models.

6.1 Policy Cycle Approaches

Under the policy cycle, May and Wildavsky(1978), Hogwood and peters (1985), de Leon
(1987) and Hogwood (1992) examined the policy change. Policy change is the consequences
of earlier policies which may have changed the conditions. New Policy, therefore, frequently
emerges from the existing policy or overlaps with on-going programmes.
Brain Hogwood and Guyi Peters suggest a model of policy change as given below:
Policy Innovation: when government becomes involved in a problem or an area which is
“new”. Given the fact that the modern policy space is very crowded, new policy is likely to be
framed within the existing related policies.
Policy Succession: Involves the replacement of the existing policies by other policies. The
change doesn’t involve any fundamental change in approach, but it is continues with the
existing policy.
Policy maintenance: is the adaptation of policies, or adjustments to keep the policy on track
Policy Termination: is the flip side of innovation. In termination a policy or a programme is
abandoned, wound down and public expenditure on that policy is cut. It is a dead policy, a
policy that has ceased to be an ex-policy.
They argued that policy change will take place within the context of policy succession and in
a domain between innovation and maintenance, maintenance and termination.

Succession Innovation Maintenance Termination

Replacement of existing policies new policies Types of policy growth Types of policy Reduction

 Linear *Programme extension *Externally generated decline

 Consolidation *clientele extension *Dilution and deterioration
 Splitting *programme enhancement * Removal of Clientele
 Non-linear *Indexing *Elimination of a program element

* Externally generated expansion *Elimination of a programme

Figure: Hogwood and Peter’s Model of Policy change

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To Hogwood and peters there are four types of policy succession:
i. Linear: The replacement of existing policy by another policy
ii. Consolidation: consolidation of a number of policies into a unified framework.
iii. Splitting: splitting a policy into a number of separate component parts.
iv. Non-linear

6.2 Contingency Approaches

For contingency theorists such as Woodward, Lawrence and Lorsch, it is important to understand the
way in which organizations change to meet the growing demands of different environments and
technologies.
This approach points to the importance of organization shaping itself to fit its wider environment. Its
focus is on impact of environment and technology on the organization. However this theory doesn’t
consider the issue of power. The main source of change in the public sector organizations comes
from decision makers who have the power and authority to bring about change. Here two critiques of
the contingency approaches of Woodward and of Lawrence and Lorsch have a relevance to explain
how and why change comes about in the organizations:
a. Strategic Choice approach
b. Population ecology approach
Strategic Choice Approach: according to John Child, who is the exponent of strategic choice
approaches, change in an organization is an essentially political process. He argues that bureaucrats
and politicians form a dominant coalition, shape the organization’s structure and objectives. They
have also the capacity to influence the conditions prevailing by manipulating the environment (what
markets to enter). Under the contingency approach the aim is to bring about a better fit with the
environmental conditions.
Population Ecology Approach: population ecology approach rejects the idea that organizations
have the power to fit themselves to the environment which contingency approach argues. On the
contrary population ecology approach focuses on the power of the environment to determine
organizational change (the idea of fittest survival prevails).
In this organizations have to obtain the necessary resources in order to survive, failing which they
decline or die. With strategic choice, the population ecology approach lends itself to understand the

49
way in which organizations change. For example, the public sector management has followed the
practice of management in the private sector to improve its functioning.
Di Maggio and Powell offer a framework which proposes that change comes about as organizations
are shaped to resemble other units which face the same conditions. Their model supposes that
organizations exist in the field of “supplier, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies
and other organization that produces similar services or products”. According to Di Maggio and
Powell, organizational change may take place through three mechanisms:
i. Coercive: formal or informal pressures which are exerted on organizations by the other
organizations upon which they are dependent. It also includes cultural expectations in the
society within which the organizations are located
ii. Mimetic: in conditions of uncertainty, the change may be the result of copying or imitating
other organizations which are seen as offering a solution or model.
iii. Normative: professionals operating in organizations may change their organization so as to
ensure that they resemble the preferred or dominant organizational pattern in the field.
This isomorphic approach provides a framework for understanding the pressures which are shaping
between the voluntary and public and private sectors. The professionals act to shape organizations so
that these have a uniformity and similarity which facilitate movement and professional standards.
Thus strategic choice would argue that it is the decision making coalitions that have the power to
bring about change in the environment. On the contrary resource dependency would argue that it is
the power of the environment which determines organizational change.

6.3 Managerial Approach to Change

In recent years Managerial approach to change in public sector has come to occupy an important
place in the debate of change. Within this domain two central ideas tend to predominate: Culture and
Leadership
i. Cultural Change: the managerial approach has laid emphasis on changing the culture in public
sector so that it is more business-like and less bureaucratic. The cultural approach lays
emphasis on the importance of beliefs, values, attitudes, norms, in the analysis of how
organization works, rather than the environmental factors.
ii.Leadership Role: the managerial approach has led neat stress on the role of leadership in
bringing about change in the organization. In conditions of rapid change and uncertainty the

50
 public sector may follow the private sector in managing change in terms of culture and
leadership.
Kaufman is concerned with understanding the relationship between change and conflict with a view
to managing change successfully. According to her the process of change will involve different
stakeholders with varying levels of power, representation, resource, and kinds of relationship. It will
also be shaped by the environment and decision rules overtime. Further in order to manage conflict,
stakeholders will engage in a unilateral moves (such as Litigation, appeal to rules and press release)
and joint moves which involve communication mediation, and negotiation.

6.4 Policy Learning Model

Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith suggest that the key to understand policy change is the dynamics of
beliefs and policy learning. The learning model provides an integrative framework for viewing
change in the policy process. Two models may be identified here: the organizational learning
models and social learning models.

6.5 Organizational Models of Learning

The focus in organizational models of policy learning is on the way in which People and policy
makers in the organizational context learning. The learning approach has been most developed by
Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith in addition there are many others who talk about learning to the policy
process.

Argyris and Aschon argue that in the organization there is on the one hand pressure for its stability
and on the other hand the necessity for change. This creates a confusing environment in which
individuals have to think defensively and competitively on the one hand and functional
cooperatively on the other hand. Organizations, according to them, tend to function under model I
behavior.
Model 1, single loop: in this model individuals are driven by the desire to pursue their goals, reduce
their dependence on other, keep their ideas and feelings to themselves and protect themselves from
change. Learning in this model is self-contained and self-oriented. Its aim is to defend the position of
the individual. It is a model of learning which produces conformity, mistrust, inflexibility and self-
sealing. Hardly, it is a model to facilitate change and adaptation.

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Argyris and Aschon have proposed a new approach which provides for “double loop” learning
process.

Model 2 double loop: This model involves the cultivation of decision making based upon openly
obtained information, taking action with other. Model 2 involves joint inquiry and a restructuring of
organizational norms, strategies and assumptions to foster an organization responsive to change.
As against defensive model which pollutes the decision making system and is hostile to change, the
model 2 provides the conditions for change and adaptation. They argue that the aim of management
should be to promote an environment in which ‘double-loop’ learning occurs.

Les Metcalfe developed his ideas on the relevance of the learning model to define a distinctive form
of public sector management in the 1960s.
“In the political environment of public management learning processes are especially difficult to
create and maintain. Individual learning is a psychological process. Organizational learning is a
political process. A critical task of public management is to build institutional learning capacities at
the macro level to manage the environment in which private management operates. But,
conventional political processes often block learning because ideology overrides evidence or vested
interests resist policy evaluation and change… public management reforms are better regarded as
management by design rather by direction. It should be concerned with designing adaptable systems
rather than producing blueprints specific reform”.

Browne and Wildavsky have developed a theory of evaluation and implantation as an ongoing
learning process: as self-evaluating process. Lindblom focuses on learning as a means of reducing
impairment in the policy making process.

To David Collingridge, learning is a trial and error process. He advocates the use of trial and error
method for improving the tasks of management. The rules of the trial and error method are:
i. Trials are kept to a minor nature, thus being expensive even when they fail;
ii. Changes are marginal in nature ;
iii. Trials have a rapid result;
iv. The energy of critical scrutiny is to be proportional to the cost of mistakes;

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 v. Many diverse interest groups take part in the decision process;
vi. Political power is shared among these groups;
vii. Choice is through compromise amongst these groups;
viii. Actions are co-ordinated by mutual interaction rather than planned from the center.
This method does not offer a distinct normative framework for policy making. In this method,
concept fails to provide a satisfactory account of what is happing in the post decisional phase of
policy making.

6.6 Social Learning Models

The social process approach is concerned with the way in which learning takes place in society
as a whole, and how this learning can be promoted. Edgar Dunn called for the development of
forms of organizations.

Chapter seven
Globalization of National Policy Making: An International Perspective
Introduction
Policy-making is an extremely analytical and political process which involves a complex set
of forces. It begins with the ideas people or interest groups have about the actions they want the
government to take. In other words, these are the demands or proposals made by interest groups
or by other actors upon the political system for action or inaction on some perceived problems.
Public policies are being conditioned everywhere by the external environment [19, p. 95-96]. It
is impossible to separate the external environmental factors, as they invariably influence the
political processes and policy outcomes. The influence, being brought to bear on socio-economic
problems of a country by agencies (WHO, ILO, UNEP, UNDP, etc.), the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, the European Policy Forum, the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Central Bank, etc., is of critical
importance in shaping its policies.

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7.1 The Impact of Global Events on National Policy Agenda
Developing countries are particularly vulnerable to global events and actions and have come
to depend heavily on the international community for financial and technical assistance.
Consequently, national policies are interlocked with global issues. As Landell Mills and
Serageldin state, “Because poor countries generally have fragile politics and weak systems of
accountability, with few autonomous institutions and little power to offset that exercised by the
central government, external agencies are potentially key political players, capable of exerting
considerable influence […]”. The boundaries of the political system are no longer impermeable
to outside pressures and influences. Public policy now takes place in a world system as well as in
national political systems. The international environment has an added role to play in influencing
the national policies. The mass media and international conferences ease the process of policy
diffusion. Harrop notes that “The international environment forms much of the context of
national policy-making. Policy-makers in each country share a policy context formed by the
international economic cycle of prosperity; recession depression and recovery […] International
organizations such as the EC also form an increasingly important part of the context of national
policy-making. The policy agenda is also becoming international”.
As multinational corporations and international organizations come to exercise a great degree
of influence, so the capacity of national policy-makers to frame their own agendas in reduced.
National issues, such as social welfare, environment, drugs and trade, are items on the national
policy agenda which have become global issues. This has been accompanied by increasing
transnational cooperation. National policy agenda in a developing country of Iran is now exposed
to developed countries. With globalization, there is a greater scope of interaction between a
nation state and other countries. A nation state has now come to exercise less control on policy
agenda than it was in the second half of the twentieth century. From the national perspective, this
means that the policy agenda may be global, but the policy-making and implementation remain
national. Thus, there is a new kind of inter-play between transnational companies and the
national and world economies. Global issues interact with national issues, which, in turn, interact
with the local level. Globalization posits that these layers are becoming even more interactive
and permeable and that a new policy is emerging. For example, in European context, a new
policy level is developing in terms of Europeification of national policy-making Europe’s

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common currency (Euro notes and coins issued by the European Central Bank from 1 January
2002) is expected to open the way to a closer political union among European nations.
Similarly, most developing countries undertook significant liberalization of their trade
regimes during the late 1980s and the 1990s slashing tariffs, reducing non-tariff barriers to trade,
and privatizing public enterprises under the pressures of the World Bank and European countries.

7.2 The Need for a Global Perspective

It may be noted that the nation of World Politics was central to Harold Laeewell’s
conception of the policy sciences. In 1951, Lasswell argued that policy sciences should take
account of world trends and forces when considering the context of policy problems. He
maintained the following: “Indeed, one of the major tasks of the policy sciences today is to
follow in detail the processes of social invention, diffusion, and restriction throughout the globe
for the sake of estimating the significance of specific events”. Writing in 1968, Lasswell also
maintained that “As the globe shrinks into interdependence, relying more fully on science and
technology, the policy sciences gain significance […] Interdependence implies that every
participant and every item in the social process is affected by the context in which it occurs.”
Similarly, Etzioni in 1968 also observed that there was a rising interdependence between
nations and economies. But he also felt that “Surprisingly, many social scientists tend to
overplay that nation-state as the unit of societal analysis and underplay supranational bonds and
controls; above all they tend to take the nationalistic moral community as the community of
values”.

7.3 Determinants for Globalism

As it has been already maintained, the country’s “political system” also functions within the
“world system”. The boundaries of the political system are no longer impermeable to outside
pressures and influences. The world has become a single social system as a result of growing ties
of interdependence. The point is that there is a new kind of interplay between transnational
companies and the national and world economies. To Giddens, transnational corporations,
growing economic integration and the globalization of communications and media are major
factors that make for globalism. Globalization as a term has gained wide attention and
recognition. To Albrow, globalization refers to “all those processes by which the peoples of the
world are incorporated into a single world society, global society”. He further says that

55
“globalism is one of the forces which assist in the development of globalization”. The
implications of the nation of globalization are that policy-makers must consider agenda
formation and problem definition within a global context. The “policy-makers in each country
share a policy context formed by the international economic cycle of prosperity, recession,
depression and recovery”. In a global environment, it is possible to speak of the convergence of
concerns for which global strategies may be formulated. As such, in a global context, more and
more issues will be structured by larger forces outside the nation’s constitutional framework of
public policy-making.

7.4 Policy Agenda in a Global Context

It is important for policy-makers to take account of global issues when considering the context of
policy problems in national setting.
Environment
Pollution of the air and water, destruction of forests and loss of fertile soil are becoming critical
problems with serious consequences for health, food production, productivity, and perhaps even
the ability of the earth to support human life. Protection and improvement of the quality of the
environment has become a global issue since 1980s.
To Porter and Brown, the environmental issue is increasingly penetrating policy issues, such as
international security, North-South relations and world trade. Their study shows how the issue
has involved the development of new levels of interactions among states to form a “global
environmental regime”. Because of a growing global environmental stress, there is a sustained
pressure on national policy-makers to change or modify their policy positions.
The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) observed the following:
“The traditional forms of national sovereignty are increasingly challenged by the realities of
ecological and economic interdependence. Nowhere is this more true than in the shared
ecosystems and in “the global commons those parts of the planet that fall outside national
jurisdictions”.
Industrial growth places pressures on policy-makers to prevent control pollution. International
agreements on ways to control pollution and close ties between environmentalists have provided
an exchange of information that shapes the policy agenda. The United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development in Brazil in June 1992 produced treaties to control global
warming and preserve the diversity of species. The meeting issued the Rio Declaration, setting

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forth broad principles of environmental protection and sustainable development, and Agenda 21,
a detailed plan for combating various environmental problems. In sectors, such as land, fresh
water, forests, biodiversity and climate change, the 1997 UN assessment found that conditions
either were no better than in 1992 or had worsened.

Poverty and Population Growth

Developing countries are facing increasingly serious population growth and poverty problems.
Despite lower poverty rates, the number of poor people has
increased largely because of population growth in developing countries, as well as uneven
development, and increasing concentration of wealth.
Almost half of the world’s population (approximately 2.5 billion) lives on less than $ 2 a day,
and one fifth of the world’s population (approximately 1.4 billion) live on less than $ 1.25 a day.
This horrific level of poverty persists despite unprecedented increase in global wealth in the past
century. As the 21st century begins, a growing number of people and rising levels of
consumption per capita are dimensions of poverty.
Poverty and population growth have now become global issue. The World Bank’s (WB) new
strategy proposes, for example, an approach to fighting poverty. The three-pronged approach of
the WB focuses on increasing opportunities for people, facilitating their empowerment and
enhancing their security. Policy-makers and environmentalists now largely agree that efforts to
reduce poverty and population growth and to achieve better living standards can be closely
linked and are mutually reinforcing. The policy agenda at the global level is now slowing the
increase in population and attacking poverty.
Most countries, especially developing ones, have come out with national health policies, which
are global in context. As diseases have no barriers, there is the need for international cooperation
and national political action by turning statements of principle into specific policies and actions
throughout the world.
Family planning is seen as a strategy to reduce population growth. The 1994 International
Conference on Population Development (ICPD) programme of action states that “the aim of
family planning programmes must be to enable couple and individuals to decide freely and
responsibly the number and spacing of their children” with a view to reducing population size.
Governments of nations that sign international documents of principles make a commitment to

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act on these principles. The extent of government attention to such commitments and the amount
of money allocated to implementing them, however, vary considerably around the world.
AIDS
AIDS as a communicable disease has become a serious concern to the international community.
ADIS has already killed more than 20 million people, and today 35 million people are living
with HIV/AIDS, 23 million of them alone are living in Sub-Saharan Africa. Every day another
7,000 people are infected. And around the world, the epidemic is having a huge effect on GNP.
Since it is a global issue, the policy analyst must find a global solution involving a coordinated
international cooperation and national political action. Iohnatan Mann, the Director of the
WHO’s AIDS Programme, stressed that AIDS has been bringing about a “new paradigm of
health, because of four factors: “it is a global problem; it is understood and spoken as a global
problem; and it is known worldwide; and AIDS is combated at the truly global level”.
Drugs
The use of drugs has become an equally global concern. Earlier, it was regarded as a social
problem and the focus was on seeking a national policy. However, since 1980s drug use has
posed a serious menace to the international community and it requires a global cooperation and
action. The international concern has addressed the supply and transportation of drugs from the
producer nations, such as Thailand, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Columbia, Peru and Bolivia.
Trade and Industry
Changes have occurred in industry as a consequence of global changes and shifts. The major
sources of global shift are transnational corporations which organize production on a world-wide
scale, the policies pursued by national governments and the enabling technologies of transport,
communication and production. This has largely weakened the ability of national governments to
make policies independently of those changes. Dicken observes the following: “[…] the well-
being of nations, regions, cities and other communities depends increasingly merely on events in
their own backyards but on what happens at a much larger geographical scale […] we need a
global perspective”.
Yet nearly 80 countries containing a third of the world’s population are being increasingly
marginalized, and over the past 20 years developing countries’ share of global trade fell from 0.8
to 0.4 percent. The fact is that 2.5 billion people live on less than $ 2 a day, and 1.4 billion live
on less than $ 1.25 a day. In this way, international development cannot be achieved.

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However, national policy-makers have the task of formulating policies which help create
business climate. The global industrial environment interacts with the national political
processes, and consequently, national policies are increasingly influenced by activities and
events happening well away from the national context. So, the capacity of the national policy-
makers to frame their own agendas is considerably reduced.
Privatisation
The beginning of the 1990s witnessed a marked privatization instead of government control.
There has been a renewed emphasis on privatization and competition throughout the world.
Governments of most countries, both developed and developing, have adopted policies of (1)
transferring government – controlled enterprises to have private sector; and (2) opening up a
large number of industries to the private sector to encourage competition. Privatization is now
fashionable in European community, South and North America, Australia, Asia, Africa, and is
gaining popularity in Eastern Europe.
The concept of privatization is ambiguous, as it may imply severe reductions in the size of the
public sector and a drastic shrinkage of public ownership ofkey industries. Privatization is being
driven by the shift of important economic sectors to operation on a global scale. National policy
agendas are being shaped by forces of global economic restructuring.
Terrorism
Terrorism is another global problem, which is spreading like a cancer. In Iran, examples of
terrorism are Hypocrites group (MKO), Jundullah in Sistan and Baluchistan Province, PJAK
group in west of Iran. In the world, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Revolutionary Armed forces of
Colombia, Ansar al-Sunnah Army, Basque Fatherhood and Freedom are operating as terrorist
organizations. Attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon in the United States on 11
September, attacks on India’s Parliament on 13 December in 2001, bombings of three subway
trains and one bus in the UK on 7 July 2005 and an attack by bombing to Islamic Republic Party
office in Iran on 1 October 1982 are four important dates that made the whole world realize that
terrorism had challenged the world community.
Sabharwal observed that “Our main enemy in the twenty-first century will be terrorism.
Terrorism organizations or countries using them as a front could explode a stray nuclear warhead
or carry out biological or chemical attacks which in turn could cause a chain reaction and bring
the world to the brink of destruction”.

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There were several wars in the last century, including two World Wars, but the first decade of
this century saw a radically different scenario – highly motivated groups of people launching
attacks on nation-states. The shadowy figure of the terrorist has loomed large in homes and
outside, menacingly.
Now, there is the need for global cooperation for fighting global terrorism. For this aim, in
September 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted the Global Counter- Terrorism Strategy.
Then, between November 2010 and May 2012, the Office of the UN Counter-Terrorism
Implementation Task Force (CTITF) was established. Also, recently, the second global
conference of the national focal points has been held in Geneva, entitled International Counter-
Terrorism Focal Points Conference on Addressing Conditions Conducive to the Spread of
Terrorism and Promoting Regional Cooperation. Today, countries more than any other time have
concluded that they cannot stand alone to fight with this phenomenon. Therefore, more and more
are encouraged to international cooperation. An example of such international cooperation is
Iran’s recent cooperation with Argentina about identifying the perpetrators of terrorist explosions
in the AMIA Trade Center.
Other Global Issues
It may be added that the world is becoming reluctantly internationalist, recognizing that the
diversity of domestic social and economic issues (social welfare, trade, industry, agriculture,
health, education, nuclear war, famine, etc.) is an item on the national political agenda, which is
tied up with global issues. This has been accompanied by growing regionalization and
internationalization. The global environment forms much of the context of national policy-
making.
Generally it is largely felt that in developing democratic countries policy agenda is driven by
global forces. Problems arise in a context in which economic and social conditions play a major
role in shaping opinions and political strategies. For example, the economics that stuck with the
planning model experienced slow growth, stagnation, or worse; the collapse of the socialist
economies was but “the final nail in the planning coffin”. By the 1990s, countries around the
world were actively engaged in privatizing public enterprises. But the power of decision or
policy and the capacity to implement it remains largely within the nation states. There is,
therefore, a tension between the spillover, which may be said to be taking place at the global
level and the reality of the maintenance of national sovereignty. Against the pressure of global

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agenda, the fact remains that at times of crisis “governments are prone to withdraw from
intergovernmental cooperation and supranational policy-making rather than move positively into
closer collaboration”. A common issue and problems within a global context may be increasingly
identified in international terms, but decision-making and implementation still remain largely
within nation states. The global socio-economic framework interacts with the political processes
and policies pursued by governments of nation states. The success of nation states in policy
performance will diverge notwithstanding the convergence of the global policy concerns.

Chapter 8

8. An Overview of Public Policy Making in Ethiopia

8.1 Background perspectives on the historical, politico-cultural and

institutional antecedents to public policymaking in Ethiopia

Politico-cultural antecedents
Ethiopia’s past (its history and the traditional institutions developed in the course of time) have
had an enormous impact on state-society relationships with respect to policymaking. The
traditional values and institutions appeared to have encouraged neither open opposition nor
reasoned criticism of government authorities, nor the policies that they unilaterally adopted. It is
argued, therefore, that deep-seated traditional and indigenous political forms that have long been
rooted in the past have vital relevance in explaining state-society relationships and the dynamics
of public policymaking in Ethiopia.

Therefore, having a good grasp of the historical, social and cultural circumstances will be of
paramount importance in understanding the dynamics of public policymaking in Ethiopia.
Minilik II was the Emperor who oversaw the country’s expansion to the south, the restoration of
the medieval territories and the unification of Ethiopia, as noted above. The treaties that he
concluded with the colonial powers that had colonial territories bordering on Ethiopia – such as
Italy, France and Britain – earned him the recognition of the country’s sovereignty. However, the
success in territorial gains in the course of internal conquest, expansion and resistance to external
colonial expansions brought with it and bequeathed to the succeeding generations the notion that

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the use of force could be largely recognized as a major instrument of control and domination.
Over the years not only has this been gradually ingrained in the belief system and values of the
policy elites in Ethiopia, but also has it been promoted by the cultural and social structure of
traditional Ethiopia. The Solomonic myth, for instance, purportedly established the ruling line of
Ethiopia into blood relationship with the House of David and ultimately with Christ. The people
were persuaded to believe that Solomon’s descendants, such as Emperor Haileselassie, should
rule over Ethiopia, because they were divinely ordained. Chapter I, article 1 of the first Ethiopian
constitution provided: ‘the Imperial dignity shall remain perpetually attached to the line of His
Majesty Haileselassie I, descendant of King Sahleselassie, whose line descends…from the
dynasty of Minilik I, son of King Solomon of Jerusalem and of Queen Sheba of Ethiopia’. Thus,
Emperor Haileselassie, who ruled Ethiopia for half a century, used the following titles in policy
documents and official appearances: ‘Conquering Lion of Judah, Haileselassie I Elect of God,
Emperor of Ethiopia’. Additionally, not only did the Solomonic legend find its spiritual
justification in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, but the latter also campaigned to inspire awe
among the Ethiopian populace. The people were preached into believing that, although the
ultimate source of authority is God, its worldly exercise was bestowed up on the emperor.

Therefore, not only was authority claimed to have originated from the pinnacle of the hierarchy
and the direction of its flow downward, but also the excessive respect accorded to authority made
it difficult, and even impossible, to express any opposition to a superior. This was even more
complicated by the hierarchical nature of the politico-administrative structure and the
predominantly feudal socio-economic formation. Ethiopian society has long been ruled by a
hierarchical politico-administrative order, with public institutions operating under the monarchy
(Meheret, 1997: 64). Since land was the basis for status and wealth, the monarchical structure
had to sustain and adapt to modern bureaucratic institutions by extracting surplus from the mass
of the peasantry. The basic components of the social system were the monarchy, the landed
aristocracy, the clergy and the mass of rural farmers (ibid). However, the traditional polity had to
strike a balance between the landed nobility and the modern educated elites, in which case a
measure of adaptation had to take place in order to preserve the stability of the monarchical
structure and exercise control in the face of continuing social and administrative changes. The
process of adaptation not only integrated educated elites into the apparatus of the administrative

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structure, but it also become instrumental in the process of centralization that Haileselassie’s
regime had pursued ever since his ascension to the throne. Centralization was accomplished
through the partial modernization of state apparatus, and thereby establishing the basis of the
elite status of the educated group (Clapham, 1969; Markakis, 1974; Bahiru, 1991). In the last
years of the imperial era, the incorporation of the educated group into the politico-administrative
structure not only had changed the monarchy into a veritable autocracy, but also this very
adaptation engendered an imperial-bureaucratic elite structure (op. cit).

Hence, most Ethiopians have long been captured by traditions deep-seated in their sociopolitical
cultures that defined the relations of the state to the society in authoritarian terms. The only
politically active groups were those in the upper-most hierarchy of the government institutions.
Authority was treated with the utmost respect, and a person holding it was received with
reverence; thus, he could neither be challenged nor was there any reasoned criticism of policy
proposals possible. Most Ethiopians had profound reverence for their great men, above all for
their monarch, and to them it was considered as a diminution of that greatness for the
subordinates to take decisions and perform actions entrusted to their superiors (ibid). For the
latter, too, delegating ones authority was unlikely, because doing so could be seen as lowering of
the status of the superior in the eyes of the subordinates (op. cit). These entrenched feelings
might have gradually changed over the past three decades, though they have been influencing
remarkably the broad spectrum of public policymaking and relationships between state and
society. Furthermore, policy and political problems have hardly been resolved through open
debate and compromise; rather authority and the use of force have more often than not been used
to discourage even the most ordinary disobedience and dissent. Except for the privileged few, the
bulk of the people remained apolitical. Nor was there any right to form associations. Till very
recently neither transfer of power nor change of government were resolved peacefully. In the
Ethiopian context, therefore, resorting to a violent mechanism of ascertaining political power and
asserting one’s domination has been integral in socio-political culture and history. History and
culture also have an enormous influence on the dynamics of public policymaking and state-
society relationships in contemporary Ethiopia.

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In summary, major social and economic policy decisions affecting citizens and the country were
conceived and made by the emperors and palace courts. Not only were the administrative.
personnel who executed policies protégés of court officials of higher order, but they were also
groomed to implement policies and decrees with absolute obedience. Moreover, the feudal order
had long been the bedrock of the Ethiopian socio-economic order. In its worst form the feudal
order nurtured a culture of subjugation and inculcated absolute compliance with the decisions
made by the imperial court. Not only was the power of the emperors and nobility unchallenged,
but citizens also had no say in policy matters. In pre-revolutionary Ethiopia socio-economic
power and/or status were dictated by one’s possession of large tracts of land (Bahiru, 1991).
Emperors allocated land to the nobility and loyal subjects as patronage. The landlords,
government officials and the Orthodox Church owned the bulk of land, and controlled the lives
of millions of the peasantry. The latter had no legal, economic and political rights. The fact that
state-society relationships and the structure of policymaking evolved from and were determined
by the prevailing socio-economic order meant not only that the ordinary citizens’ participation in
the policymaking process was virtually undermined, but also that independent civil society
groups had no chance of entry into the narrow circle of the policymaking process. In short, the
client-patron relationship that has over the past several hundred years been developing between
the state and society tends to haunt the structures and institutions of public policymaking in
Ethiopia to this day.

8.1.1 Institutional antecedents: Haileselassie’s period

To begin with, the 1931 constitution was a landmark in the history of Ethiopian public policy,
not only because the first constitution was promulgated, but also because the first bicameral
parliament convened immediately after the constitution was promulgated. The first constitution
resembled in part that of the Japanese Empire of 1889, which in turn was similar to the
constitution of 1871 of the German Empire (Redden, 1966; Assafa, 2002). Looking back to the
time (i.e. 1931) when parliament was founded, nearly all sub-Sahara African states were still
under colonial rule. It is probably not surprising to see a legislature whose powers had been
circumscribed entirely. Nor was it expected to represent the basic repository of the authority of
the people or supreme policymaking body of the state. The emperor had unrestricted
constitutional powers, extraordinarily exceeding the power of the legislators, including the power

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to declare war, appoint judges, dissolve parliament, negotiate as well as sign treaties (Meheret,
1997: 86). The gist of the matter lies in article 6 of the constitution: ‘In the Ethiopian Empire
supreme power rests in the hands of the Emperor’. Hence, the parliament was neither meant to
carry out the usual functions of an elected legislature, nor was it a source of pubic authority.
The 1931 constitution concisely defined the structure of the legislature to consist of two
deliberative chambers. The Chamber of Senate or upper house (Yeheg Mewesegna Mekerbet)
was to consist of members appointed by the emperor drawn from among the nobility ‘who have
for a long time served his Empire as Princes or Ministers, Judges or high military officers’
(Article 31). Till the people are in a position to elect the members of the Chamber of Deputies or
lower house (Yeheg Memria Mekerbet) themselves, the constitution stated, the nobility and local
chiefs shall designate them (Article 32). The bulk of the 1931 constitution, nevertheless, was
devoted to stipulating the power of the monarch, with the virtual power of initiating laws and
policies resting in the person of the emperor.

Promulgated in November 1955, the revised constitution appeared to state some provisions
giving the lower house (Chamber of Deputies) a power base separate from the emperor. In much
the same way as the 1931 constitution, however, while the Senate remained an appointed
chamber with members still chosen from among the nobility, dignitaries, the clergy and other
prominent personages assigned to sit for a 6-year term by the emperor, members of the lower
house (Deputies) were elected by universal adult suffrage for a four-year term (Revised
Constitution, 1957). Unfortunately, a strict wealth requirement imposed on candidates coupled
with the absence of a party from which Deputies could have drawn organized inspiration forced
the MPs to rely on government patronage for re-election (Lipsky, 1962; Clapham, 1969). Nor did
they put up any challenges to any legislative proposals originating from the executive. In fact,
the powers of the monarch were even more precisely sharpened in the revised constitution than
in the first constitution promulgated in 1931. It vested a multitude of powers of vital importance
in the emperor. Not only did it invest sovereignty of the empire in the emperor with the power to
determine the organization, powers and duties of all government departments, and to appoint and
dismiss government officials, but he also had absolute control over the armed forces with wide
ranging emergency powers (Articles, 26, 27 and 29). Apart from this, the emperor had absolute

65
control over foreign relations, the power to dissolve the parliament and to reverse the decisions
of the courts and grant pardons (Articles 30, 33 and 35).

Instead of reducing the powers of the emperor, the revised constitution substantially enlarged and
reinforced his powers. Article 4 of the constitution, among others, made an explicit reference to
the absolute powers of the emperor: ‘…the person of the Emperor is sacred, His dignity is
inviolable and His power indisputable’. Additionally, he had virtual powers and control over the
executive and administrative structures: ‘The Emperor has the right to select, appoint and dismiss
the Prime Minister and all other Ministers and Vice-Ministers’ (article 66). Put simply, the
Council of Ministers, the organs of administrative apparatuses at central and provincial levels,
operated as extensions of the palace court. After 1943 the emperor appointed ministries till an
imperial order issued in 1966 granted the prime minister the power to nominate members of his
cabinet, though subject to palace approval (Markakis, 1974)

In fact, intermediating between the emperor and the parliament, the prime minister and the
council of ministers chiefly remained a clearinghouse for legislation. The close involvement of
the emperor with the executive functions of central government certainly made the executive
more important than the legislature and higher organs of the judiciary. Unlike as we know it
today, the prime minister’s office then lacked a useful supervisory and executive power, with
little influence on the central government. In other words, the prime minister hardly provided
unified executive direction for the government, whether by enforcing general policy initiatives or
by commanding the obedience of other high officials, nor had he powers over such vital areas as
provincial administrations and the armed forces (Clapham, 1969; Markakis1974).

Furthermore, radiating from the central government in the capital, the emperor also gained more
control over local government. The administrative divisions had been revised and administrative
offices corresponding to them were established to reflect the modernization thrust and ambitions
of the emperor. The provinces (Teklay Gizat) constituted the biggest administrative units, with
each province divided into sub-provinces (Aawrajas), districts (Woredas) and sub-districts
(Mikitil Woredas). Local administrators in rural Ethiopia were primarily concerned with the
traditional functions of law enforcement, maintenance of law and order, and collection of taxes

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(Lipsky, 1962). Although provincial administrations remained the preserve of the nobility and
traditional ruling elites, young educated men of unquestioned loyalty to the emperor were also
assigned to help provincial governors and streamline administrative processes (Perham, 1969;
Meheret, 1997).

The foregoing discussion attested to the fact that both legally and politically the palace (the
monarchy) was the most powerful institution of policymaking and the center of all political
activities during Haileselassie’s era. The vital institutions of the palace court such as the Crown
Council, the Private Cabinet, the Minister of Pen, Aquabe Saat surpassed the formally
established institutions of policymaking and implementation such as the council of ministers, the
parliament and the provincial administrations. The emperor, as an apogee of both modern and
traditional political institutions, became the source of legislation, and no policy was issued
without his approval (Bahiru, 1991). As noted earlier, both constitutions had duly underlined that
the power of the palace can neither be disputed nor challenged. Furthermore, the predominant
legal, socio-cultural, historical and political milieu permitted no political associations of any
kind; thus, the political system hardly encountered demands for preferred policies, neither were
there any such significant societal pressures on the political system to put up proposals and
demands for policy changes till 1974.

In the wake of the 1960 aborted military coup, the last fourteen years of Haileselassie reign
witnessed growing opposition to his regime. In the aftermath of the coup, the Emperor sought to
re-claim the loyalty of coup sympathizers by introducing a few reforms, but they were far too
few. For the most part the measures, which took the form of land grants, primarily targeted
enriching the senior and middle-level military and police officers, but no coherent economic and
social development programs had been launched (Ottaway, 1978; Halliday and Molyneux,
1981). Haileselassie’s government failure to carry out significant economic and political reforms
over the previous fourteen years, combined with rising inflation, widespread corruption and
maladministration, a famine that affected millions of farmers in the northern part of the country,
and the growing discontent of urban interest groups provided the backdrop against which the
Ethiopian revolution unfolded in 1974.

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8.1.2 Public policy making during Dergue regime
Process, roles and institutions, 1974-1987
The legislative process
For thirteen years since the downfall of Haileselassie’s regime in 1974, there had not been any
written constitution in Ethiopia. Established as a collective head of government by a
proclamation, a body of junior and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) drawn from the armed
forces, police and territorial army held government power (PMAC, 1974). The group was
popularly known as the Dergue (the Amharic word for ‘committee’ or ‘council’). It deposed the
emperor, annulled the 1955 constitution, dissolved Hailesellasie’s parliament and officially
declared the establishment of a Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC) in place of
the imperial government (PMAC, 1974:1-2). Afterwards, a plethora of proclamations were
promulgated in the name of the corporate group, namely, the Dergue or the PMAC.
After removing the imperial establishments, the Dergue did not offer guidelines to deal with the
policymaking process. The proclamation that the Military Government issued in September
1974 nonetheless suggested, at least indirectly, where the power of policymaking in Ethiopia
resided. It stated:
… Hailesalssie I is hereby deposed as of today, September 12, 1974. The Chamber of
Deputies and the Senate (Parliament) is hereby dissolved until the people elect through
democratic processes their genuine representatives dedicated to serve the interests of the
people... The Constitution of 1955 is hereby suspended. The Armed Forces, the Police
and Territorial Army Council has hereby assumed full government power until a legally
constituted people’s assembly approves a new constitution and a government is duly
established… (PMAC, 1974).
The proclamation was, however, vague about many contentious issues such as what the
legislative-executive relationships and the separations of functions in the policymaking process
would entail. Nor did it clearly stipulate the institutions with powers to initiate, adopt and
implement policies, which did not augur well for a democratic policymaking process. Issued in
the same year, the PMAC designated the organs of government that would be active in the
legislative process, and it, too, lacked clarity on a wide range of issues pertaining to
policymaking (PMAC, 1974).

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Towards the end of December 1976 the Dergue introduced a hierarchy within itself. It involved a
congress (consisting of all of the Dergue members), a central committee comprising forty
members and designated by the congress, and a standing committee consisting of seventeen
officers drawn from and elected by the congress (PMAC, 1976). A year later the Dergue
promulgated a piece of legislation that had a semblance of ‘a supreme law of the country’. The
legislation was enforced till the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) was officially
inaugurated in September 1987 (PMAC, 1977). Not only did the legislation substantively guide
the policymaking process in the country, but it also widely regulated relationships within various
government agencies, on the one hand, and between government and mass organizations, on the
other.
The proclamation empowered the Dergue with both the legislative and executive mandates
(PMAC, 1977). Not only did the legislation institutionalize the hierarchy within the Dergue, but
also the virtual powers of legislation and execution resided in the Standing Committee. Hence,
almost all the powers of policymaking resided in the PMAC. The Congress consisted of all
surviving members of the Dergue, the Central Committee composed of thirty-two members
elected by the former and sixteen Standing Committee members elected by the Congress from
the members of the Central Committee (PMAC, 1977, EMI, 1981). Thereafter, its membership
never changed, although actual membership declined from 120 in 1974 to 80 in 1978 as
defections, death and assassinations took their toll (Pilany, 1978: 3). Chaired by the Head of the
State, who was also the Chairman of the PMAC, the Council of Ministers’ competences had
been limited to one of deliberating rather than incorporating critical inputs into the draft laws and
policies (Shiferaw, 1989; Andargachew, 1993). However, with the assignment of trusted
personnel from the military to each ministry and administrative regions, not only had
administrative fiat eclipsed responsibilities assigned to civilian ministers by law, but also parallel
decision-making characterized the policymaking institutions. In other words, government
agencies at each level of the policymaking structure had to account to the PMAC, the trusted
military officials posted in every ministry and the Council of Ministers, which came to be known
as multiple disunity of command.

What is more, the legislative process appeared to be limited to small circles of policymakers.

69
In fact, the bulk of policy decisions of vital importance as rural and urban land reforms,
nationalization of manufacturing industries, banks and insurance companies were made by the
Dergue. Andargachew noted:
All these radical reforms could be said to have originated from the demands of
the public and of the civilian activists. Once a policy was taken up by the Derg,
however, it was up to the department heads to follow up their successful
completion. Each one of had one or more ministries and other public agencies
under their jurisdiction to assist them in this endeavor. Following the initiation of
a policy, a drafting committee was established in the relevant public agency over
which the concerned head of the Derg’s department presided.
Again, after the completion of the draft, it was up to the same department head to
submit and explain it to the Ad-hoc Supreme Organizing Committee. The latter
would then approve it with or without referring the matter to a general assembly
of the Derg. (1993, 169)
Lacking experience and expertise in legislation, the Dergue sought the assistance of civilian
ministers in the policymaking to complement its apparent weaknesses, although the latter had
marginal influence on agenda setting and the choice of policies. Nor had they exacted any
significant leverage to affect the directions of the implementation process (Teferra, 1997).
Hence, each ministry or government agency primarily proposed laws, pending their deliberation
and approval by the Dergue (Shiferaw, 1989). The Legal Department in the Office of the
Chairman of the Council of Ministers prepared the draft when, under certain conditions, the
Head of the State or the Council of Ministers had to initiate laws (Shiferaw, 1989:124). The draft
laws from these sources were to be sent to the Legal Committee in the Council of Ministers, with
the Department of Legal Affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office serving as secretariat of the
Committee. Chaired by the Minister of Law and Justice, the Legal Committee, whose members
included the Minister of Education, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Deputy Minister of
Finance, the Deputy Minister of Mines and Energy, a representative from the National Planning
Supreme Council, the
Department Head of Legal Affairs in the Office of the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and
the Minister or Head of the Agency sponsoring the draft legislation would deliberate the sprit of
the legislation, and send that to the PMAC via the CoM for approval (ibid). Shiferaw (ibid.: 125),

70
however, noted that there were exceptions to the established procedures, as when draft laws were
assigned to a group of experts specially established to examine bills to be able to provide their
expert opinion and recommendation. In some other cases, legislation was referred to a joint
Legal and Administrative Committee or to a joint Legal and Economic Committee, all of which
were established by the Office of the Council of Ministers (ibid.). After having studied and
incorporated their wisdom, the draft legislation would be sent to the Provisional Administrative
Council for final approval. The proclamations were published on the official Negarit Gazeta
bearing the name of the corporate body, Provisional Military Administrative Council (the
Dergue). Albeit the same personalities remained in the leadership positions, the virtual power of
decision making over the years shifted from the Dergue (PMAC) to COPWE/WPE.

The official ideology, the party and policymaking

In a desperate search to find a guiding philosophy, the ideological values, which PMAC
(Dergue) espoused, had metamorphosed since its coming to power in 1974. It started with
‘Ethiopia Tikdem’ (Ethiopia First) and/or Hibrettesebawinet (Ethiopian Socialism), which had
for most part been kindled with the rhetoric of justice, equality, freedom, nationalism, national
sovereignty and the primacy of the economic benefit of the common people. The first such
attempt appeared in the official government policy document. The politico-administrative, social
and economic policies that underpinned the philosophy had further been emphasized (op. cit).
Dergue pledged to invest resources and exert efforts to promote collective decision making from
village to higher-level government institutions. It also pledged for an establishment of a single
political party under which every facet of social life had to be mobilized and to which every
segment of Ethiopian society had to pay its allegiance (ibid: 8). Hence, not only was this single
political party enjoined to ensure ‘popular participation’, but it would also be instrumental for the
dissemination of the political philosophy as well as state control (ibid, 8). Ottaway and Ottaway
(1978: 63), nevertheless, argued that Ethiopia Tikdem meant in effect a rejection of a pluralist
parliamentary system in which various societal groups were represented in a struggle to
determine national policy. In other words, only the military government and the higher echelons
of its administrative structures could interpret the common good and steer Ethiopia in the ‘right
direction’.

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The guidelines certainly indicated that the Dergue placed it self in an analogous position to a
vanguard party among the plethora of government institutions, with the public bureaucracy
enforcing its policies (Schwab, 1985). In addition, the political philosophy that set policy
guidelines redefined Ethiopia’s economy, calling for the state control of major industrial
establishments, with a limited participation of the private sector in the economy. It also called for
government ownership of land (which was the center piece of Ethiopia Tikdem),
communications, manufacturing industries, electricity, and mining of precious metals, tourism,
and large-scale construction. In effect, the new economic policy provided value premises upon
which a socialist Ethiopia would be constructed.

The Dergue further outlined its economic program as follows:

The principle that the common good takes precedence over the pursuit of individual gain is the
starting point of both economic and social policies. In the domain of economic policy, giving
priority to the interests of the majority means curing its basic economic diseases. The basic
economic disease of the majority is at present poverty. The primary element of economic policy
is consequently the abolition of poverty. In addition, the prevention of economic exploitation
will also be an element of this policy. This requires the public ownership of the nation’s
economic resources.
 Accordingly those resources that are either crucial for economic development or are of
such a character that they provide an indispensable service to the community will have to
be brought under government control or ownership…
 The natural resources of the country will be a special instrument of this policy.
Agriculture is at present the mainstay of the national economy. Land tenure and
agricultural policy will consequently be changed in a manner which will make it possible
to abolish poverty and narrow the gap in the level of living. As land belongs to the entire
community, the government is the trustee of this important national resource.
 Land exclusively under public ownership and management will be designated
periodically. Government will give guidelines for land which is owned communally.
Similarly, private holdings which will fall under cooperative associations will also
operate under guidelines provided by the Government. Individuals and communities

72
 which have the legal right to operate communal, cooperative, or private farms will be
accountable to the Government for the good care and management of their holdings. The
forthcoming law on land reform will in particular cover this point. Those who operate
communal and cooperative farms will be given special government support and
assistance. (PMAC, 1974: 10)
These represented the overriding parameters and beliefs that had guided the commitment of the
emerging policy elites till they adopted National Democratic Revolution Program (NDRP) in
April 1976. This period had also witnessed the rapid growth of a cohesive administrative
framework in which all social, political and economic policies that were to be pursued would be
incorporated within that socialist construct (Schwab, 1985). In other words, not only did
December 1974 represent the genesis of the institutionalization of policymaking structures under
the leadership of the Dergue, but it was also a turning point in Ethiopian history for it witnessed
the official introduction of socialism.

The ideological metamorphosis that had its inception even before the Dergue took power
culminated in the National Democratic Revolution Program (NDRP) that made its entrance into
the official government policy documents and pronouncements after April 1976. Predicated on
the teachings of Marx and Lenin, the NDRP was a radical recourse for ideological commitment
towards scientific socialism. The Program set out the following objectives:
1. To completely abolish feudalism, imperialism and bureaucratic-capitalism from Ethiopia and
with united effort of all anti-feudal and anti-imperialist forces build a new Ethiopia and lay a
strong foundation for the transition to socialism.
2. Towards this end, under the leadership of the working class and on the basis of the worker-
peasant alliance and in collaboration with the petty bourgeoisie and other anti-feudal and anti-
imperialist forces, establish a peoples’ democratic republic in which the freedom, equality, unity
and prosperity of Ethiopian peoples is ensured, in which self-government at different levels is
exercised and which allows for the unconditional exercise of human and democratic rights.
(PMAC, 1976)

These pronouncements coincided with the establishment of the Provisional Office for Mass
Organizational Affairs (POMOA). The responsibility of translating the teachings of Marx and

73
Lenin into different ethnic languages, disseminating the same among the Ethiopian public and
laying the groundwork for the establishment of a workers’ party as well as a Soviet-style
people’s republic was assigned to the latter by legislation (PMAC, 1976). Despite it took several
years of acrimonious conflict and bickering within the Dergue and between it and civilian
activists, the objectives stipulated in the Program had an enormous impact on the modus
operandi of policymaking and organization of policymaking institutions. From this time forth,
the teachings of Marx and Lenin set the parameters of rallying the peasantry and the urban poor
behind the government and its policies and practices. Nationalization of the means of production
and the reorganization of the economy in terms of a central planning and command structure;
and the promotion of anti-West and pro-East foreign policies were entirely predicated on the
ideology.
Not only did the ideology set the parameters and modus operandi of public policymaking, but it
also provided the party and the executive leadership with the powers to set priorities for agenda
setting and policy choices to be made. Put simply, policy elites adopted Marxism-Leninism,
whose conceptual tools guided the policy goals to be pursued and the institutional instruments to
be constructed in formulating and implementing public policies.

When the Commission for Organizing the Working People of Ethiopia (COPWE) was
established in 1979, not only did the Dergue make the official claim that building socialism and
communism in Ethiopia would only be possible under the leadership of a Leninist party, but it
also claimed that the single most important actor in the socio-economic policymaking process
was the party of the working people (PMAC, 1980: 60). With COPWE as a leading political
entity, the importance of disseminating Marxist-Leninist doctrine among government and mass
organizations, cooperatives and the public had boldly been underscored (op. cit.). Policy elites
further pledged to organize a single party of the working people and instituting a new people’s
democratic republic essentially guided by and based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.

Hence, the clamor for embracing Marxism-Leninism stems from the fact that it served as a tool
for the socio-economic transformation of the country. It was also seen as the only reliable
conceptual tool and guiding principle for formulating the ‘correct’ socio-economic strategies and

74
policies and determining the lines of the country’s socio-economic and political development
(op.cit.).

In just a few months after its establishment, COPWE’s structure spanned almost all the regions,
provinces, districts and work places in the towns and rural villages. It increasingly came to
symbolize the cutting edge of all socio-economic and political initiatives and national policy
decisions, although the core group of Dergue members as yet remained the top echelon of the
COPWE leadership. The Second Plenary Session of the Central Committee of COPWE, for
instance, conducted a four-day deliberation on the vital national social and economic policy
issues, and issued an 11-point resolutions mainly targeting the re-organization of the Ethiopian
trade unions, urban dwellers’ and peasant associations, youth, women’s and professional
associations along party lines (COPWE, 1981). COPWE’s leadership issued a set of guidelines
for restructuring and implementing administrative institutions that had vital importance, such as
the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, National Revolutionary Development
Campaign and Central Planning Supreme Council (NRDC-CPSC) and other implementing
agencies dealing with natural resources, tourism, agriculture and commerce (ibid.). Having been
the hallmark of socialist socio-economic transformation, the establishment of NRDC-CPSC in
Ethiopia marked the ascendance of a command economy and central planning based on
socialism. By a proclamation promulgated in September 1984, COPWE was renamed as the
Worker’s Party of Ethiopia (WPE). Since then, the latter issued guidelines and decrees to guide
and monitor state-society relationships. Although much of the statutory pronouncements were
often made in the name of the Dergue, since the end of the 1970s, nevertheless, COPWE and
after mid1980s WPE assumed virtual control over the entire socio-economic policymaking
process. With the coming into being of the WPE, not only had policymaking by far been
centralized and institutionalized, but so also did the teachings of Marx, Lenin and the program of
WPE dictate the policymaking process. The overriding strategic objective of the party was
claimed to be building socialism, and via socialism achieve socio-economic and political
transformation and move towards a classless society, namely, communism (WPE, 1984). The
party professed that any socio-economic development and transformation in Ethiopia would be
unthinkable in the absence of the leading role of the WPE and the principles of Marxism-
Leninism from which it got its inspiration.

75
Much like its successors, WPE laid emphasis on the primacy of agriculture both in the short and
medium terms, and transformed the economy from a predominantly agriculturally based to an
industrially based economy. WPE’s central strategy in agriculture, therefore, was targeted at the
transformation of miniscule and isolated farming units into modern large-scale farming whereby
more advanced organization of agricultural production could be utilized (ibid.). The corollaries
of WPE’s agricultural strategies, at least in the medium term, included expanding big state-
owned farms, and transforming small peasant holdings into large-scale producer cooperatives
that would in turn facilitate improved organization, use of better and more advanced technology,
better production services (op. cit.). Another important corollary of the rural transformation
program was the relocation and reorganization of the peasantry from peasant associations based
on scattered homesteads to producers’ cooperatives organized on the basis of rural resettlement
and villagization programs, which had rigorously been pursued before and after the
establishment of WPE (Harbeson, 1988). Additionally, WPE exerted an effort to create an
efficient system of socialist economic management based on the principles of democratic
centralism and strong central and regional planning.

In the political and administrative spheres, based on a worker-peasant alliance and progressive
revolutionary elements, WPE pledged the establishment of a people’s democratic republic of
Ethiopia. ‘WPE is at the forefront of the new socio-political order whose ultimate objective is the
establishment of proletarian dictatorship and under the leadership of WPE. The Party’s
commitments to its historic mission of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat and laying
the socio-political basis of socialism can come true only if it can assert its supremacy in the
political leadership’ (WPE, 1984: 39-40). Moreover, not only did the party claim that it was at
the cutting age of the entire political process, but also professed that no socio-economic
development programs would be accomplished without its leadership. Suffice it to say that
Marxism-Leninism profoundly influenced development goals, with the establishments of the day
centrally guiding policy implementation. As earlier noted, the real policymaking power in WPE,
however, resided in the Politburo, which had eleven full and six alternate members. Dawit
(1990), an insider and a former member of the Central Committee of WPE, nevertheless noted
that, although WPE’s Politburo had ostensibly been the country’s most important policymaking

76
body, the latter was a little more than the articulation of ideas already decided on personally by
Mengistu. In other words, most policies of vital importance, including major socio-economic
decisions, that Mengistu proposed had little difficulty finding their way onto the agenda, and,
therefore, he could make decisions that had far-reaching consequences without consulting the
executive ministries.

The making of the 1987 constitution and its implications, 1987-1991

The making of the constitution

WPE’s program set the preconditions for the making of the constitution in 1984. It spelt out the
following points.
1. A new political order called for an establishment of the Peoples’ Democratic Republic of
Ethiopia under the leadership of WPE. The major task ahead of the leadership of WPE and the
government of PDRE would be to undertake a non-capitalist path of socio-economic
development, build socialism and communism. The achievement of these objectives would again
call for restructuring of government institutions based on a worker-peasant alliance, which would
gradually evolve into the dictatorship of the proletariat.
2. The institutional structure of the PDRE would be based on the universal tenets of Marxism-
Leninism and the principles of socialism. Hence, the republic would be supported by democratic
centralism, socialist legality and proletarian internationalism. In general, the modus operandi of
the PDRE as well as the fundamental rights of citizens would be enshrined in the constitution
and other laws.
3. WPE would ensure that the National Shengo operates as the supreme organ of state power in
the PDRE, and the supremacy of the working people would be affirmed in the republic.
Moreover, the structures of PDRE would be unitary and take into account the settlement factors
and economic conditions of ethnic groups or nationalities. In the republic the organization of
government power from the lowest regions to the national government organs would be
predicated on popular elections.
4. In view of the proper discharge of duties at different levels in the hierarchy of the republic,
government officials would come under close government and public scrutiny as well as control
(WPE, 1984: 41-43)

77
Although there had been a flurry of activities (among the public, the ruling party and government
circles) during the process of the making of the constitution, the above guidelines continued to
reign all along. In fact, the directives appeared in the different parts of the constitution that
contained 119 articles and 17 chapters in 1987. In his opening remarks to the first plenary
session of the Constitutional Commission, Mengistu reiterated the guidelines that underpinned
the constitution making process:
….the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) will be organized and run on
the basis of the well-known principles of Democratic Centralism, Proletarian
Internationalism and socialist legality. It will also be founded for the purpose of the
realization of the programs and policies of the WPE. It will accordingly make a vital
contribution to finalize our struggle, which is aimed at accomplishing the National
Democratic Revolution through mobilization of the working people, and lay the
necessary material and technical foundation for the attainment of socialism.
As you well know, intensive and extensive research has been conducted at the Institute
for the Study of Nationalities to act as a springboard for the preparation of the
constitution. Considerable work has been carried out in this regard primarily with the
close attention of COPWE and the Revolutionary Government and later under the
guidance of our party (WPE). Useful preliminary ideas have been advanced by
examining conditions in light of the characteristics of the revolution and its long-term
objectives in order to qualitatively formulate the constitution of the New Ethiopia.
Accordingly, the constitution drafting commission is not beginning its work in a vacuum
but on the basis of the concrete studies and research on which much labor has been
invested. (Herald, 25 February 1986)
The primary task facing the WPE following its formation in 1984 was thus to develop a new
national constitution that would lead to the inauguration of the People's Democratic Republic of
Ethiopia (PDRE). A Constitutional Commission consisting of 343 members was formed, by a
proclamation, to draft a new constitution in March 1986 (PMAC, 1986:3-8). Eventually, the 122
full and alternate members of the WPE Central Committee who had been appointed to its
membership dominated the commission (Teferra, 1997). The Constitutional Commission had its
origins in the Institute for the Study of Ethiopian Nationalities, which the Dergue established in

78
March 1983 to seek solutions to problems resulting from Ethiopia's ethnic diversity, to conduct
research, and undertake studies leading to the drafting of the constitution as well as the
restructuring of national and regional organs.

The implications of the constitution for policymaking

The preamble of the PDRE’s constitution traced Ethiopia’s origins back to olden days, praised
the historical heroism of its people, eulogized the country's unexploited, natural and human
wealth, and pledged to continue the struggle against imperialism and poverty (PDRE, 1987:55).
The government claimed that its primary concern was the country's development through the
implementation of the National Democratic Revolution Program (NDRP), with the primary
emphasis placed on setting the material and technical bases necessary for the implementation of
socialism (ibid.).
It further situated Ethiopia in the context of the movement of proletarian internationalism and
progressive states. Critics claimed that the constitution was no more than an abridged version of
the 1977 Soviet constitution, although strong powers were assigned to the office of the president
(Clapham, 1988; Andargachew, 1993; Teferra, 1987). A second difference between the
Ethiopian and Soviet constitutions was that the former declared the country a unitary state rather
than a union of republics. The 1987 constitution also pledged to seek solutions to simmering
problems of ethnicity within the framework of a single multiethnic state rather than a federation
(PDRE, 1987).

The ultimate policymaking power appeared to have resided in the president of the republic and
the Council of the State (which largely comprised the highest echelon of Dergue members). The
articles that follow the preamble largely addressed the political and socio-economic system that
the country had to be built to be a member of the family of socialist nations (PDRE, 1987: 55-
61).With the republic’s commitment to the building of socialism via the accomplishment of
national democratic revolution, Ethiopia was seen as a state of the working people established on
the basis of a worker-peasant alliance (1987: 55-56). The equality of nationalities and languages
within the framework of a unitary state were also assured. Guided by Marxism-Leninism, the
Workers’ Party of Ethiopia (WPE) was the sole vanguard political organization with a supreme
commitment to determine socio-economic policies of the country as well as with the powers to

79
lead the state and the entire society (article 6). Not only did socialist legality take center stage in
the governance of the relationships between the different state organs in the hierarchy of state, on
the one hand, and mass organizations, officials and individuals in the society, on the other, but it
was also the key political parameter in the selection of the participants and actors in the country’s
socio-economic policymaking process (articles 5 and 6). Furthermore, the organization of the
organs of the state were based on democratic centralism, with the lower organs accounting to the
next higher organs for their actions and abiding by the decisions of the higher organs (article 4).

In the economic sphere the state would relieve the country of economic backwardness by
strengthening the socialist relations of production and building ‘a highly integrated national
economy based on central planning (article 9). While allowing for a limited form of private
ownership within limits set by laws, it reaffirmed the pre-eminence of socialist ownership of the
means of production, distribution and exchange (articles 9 and 12). In the field of culture, the
constitution pledged to imbue the working people with socialist morality and the proletarian
culture (article 23).

Having provided for equality before the law regardless of ethnicity, sex, religion, occupation,
social and cultural status, the provisions dealing with citizenship, freedoms, rights and duties
tended to be egalitarian. Citizens were granted the right to work, to receive free education, to
have access to health care, to conduct research and engage in creative activities in science and
technology. Unlike in an imperial state, the state and religion were separate. Citizens were also
guaranteed the freedom of conscience, religion, of speech, press, peaceable assembly,
demonstration and association, although in reality citizens enjoyed very little in this regard
(articles 35, 40, 41, 42, 46 and 47).

The bulk of chapters eight to fifteen of the constitution described the modus operandi of
policymaking during the first republic and detailed the hierarchical and horizontal
relationships between organs within the republic (PDRE, 1987: 73-92). PDRE was essentially a
unitary state comprising of administrative and autonomous regions, with the administrative
regions and units of administration hierarchically organized from the highest to the lowest levels
(articles 59 and 60). Elected for a five-year term and holding sessions annually, the supreme

80
organ of the Republic was the National Shengo (national parliament) with extensive legislative
powers (articles 63, 67 and 68). They were, among others, enacting, amending and
following up the observance of the constitution and proclamations, issuing domestic,
foreign, defense and security policies; determining the state of peace and war; determining
monetary and fiscal policies (ibid).

As provided under the constitution, the National Shengo was empowered to institute the vital
organs of the state such as Council of the State, the Council of Ministers, ministries, state
committees, commissions and other government agencies, the Supreme Court, the Office of the
Procurator General, the National Workers’ Control Committee and the Office of the Auditor
General. Electing the President of the Republic, the Vice-President, the Vice-Presidents of the
Council of the State, approving the appointment of other high government officials had also been
vested in the National Shengo (article 63). It is worth noting here that the Council of State, the
President of the Republic, Commissions of the National Shengo, members of the National
Shengo, the Council of Ministers, the Supreme Court, the Procurator General, Shengos of higher
administrative and autonomous regions, and mass organizations through their national organs
were designated to propose laws and policies, although in practice the upper reach of the party
and executive leadership had exclusive claim on public policymaking (article 71). Having been
assigned to follow up the implementation and interpretation of the constitution, the Council of
the State represented the standing body of the National Shengo. Its powers included, among
others, revoking the directives and decisions of regional government organs that had to account
to the National Shengo, ratifying and revoking international treaties, granting amnesty, granting
citizenship and political asylum (articles 81 and 82). Announcing the date of the election of the
Shengo, calling its extra-ordinary sessions as well as coordinating the work of its ad-hoc and
standing committees, overseeing the discharge of responsibilities by the Council of Ministers, the
Supreme Court, the Procurator General, the National Workers’ Control Committee had as well
been entrusted to the Council of the State. Moreover, the latter had the power to issue decrees in
the pursuit of responsibilities assigned by the Shengo. Comprised of the president of PDRE, the
vice presidents, a secretary and high officials of the National Shengo, not only was the Council
of the State empowered to issue special decrees between the recesses of the Shengo, but also was

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it empowered to declare states of emergency, war, martial law, mobilization or issue peace
decrees (PDRE, 1987: 79).

Although the Council of Ministers was formally the highest executive organ, sweeping executive
powers were vested in the President, a position which was held by Mengistu (PDRE, 1987: 81-
84). The President of the PDRE was, therefore, the Head of the State, who represented the
Republic both at home and abroad, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces (article
85). The constitution also vested additional executive powers in the President, ranging from
presiding over the sessions of the National Shengo and Council of Ministers to appointing
personnel to ministerial and executive leadership, and conferring high military and civilian
appointments (ibid). He enjoyed legislative powers such as: issuing Presidential decrees in the
pursuit of powers provided by the 1987 constitution, promulgating laws approved by the Shengo,
the Council of the State and the President of the PDRE (PDRE, 1987: 83). Equally, the President
enjoyed the privileges of appointing or dismissing the prime minister, deputy prime minister, and
members of the Council of Ministers, the president and vice-presidents of the Supreme Court, the
Procurator General, the chairman of the National Workers’ Control Committee, and the Auditor
General and the Judges of the Supreme Court (article 87). Consisting of the Prime Minister,
Deputy Prime Ministers, Ministers and other members as defined by law, the Council of
Ministers was the highest executive as well as administrative organ of the Republic (article 89).
Comprised of the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Ministers and other government officials, the
Council of Ministers was chiefly empowered to execute policies (articles 91 and 92).

The constitution and other statutory provisions, nevertheless, appeared not to have clearly shown
the overwhelming powers of the combined forces of the executive and party leadership in public
policymaking during the first republic (i.e. from 1987 to 1991). The powers of legislation and
policy initiation had been vested in the National Shengo, as provided under the 1987 constitution.
In practice, nevertheless, policymaking power resided in the higher echelons of the organs of the
Republic and WPE precisely because of the requirement of the principle on which policymaking
institutions were premised, namely, ‘democratic centralism’. In fact, by default or design, not
only had the party and the executive claimed the prerogatives of designating and fielding
candidates to the Shengo, but they were also the architects and key players to lead the state and

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society. Apparently, the party (WPE) represented a sustained effort to create a political
leadership with a structure though which policy decisions were to be communicated and
implemented (Clapham, 1988). Despite the official claim put the members of the Dergue’s
parliament drawn from the peasantry and urban poor to 48 percent, in reality, however, over 95
percent of the Shengo members who had been classified as workers, farmers, state and party
functionaries were the members of the party.

In addition, the fact that the Dergue’s parliament could only hold sessions once in a year
rendered difficult the exercise of legislative duties, oversight and subpoena over the executive as
stipulated in the constitution. In other words, while the National Shengo was during the long
recess, the Council of the State which drew its members largely from the ‘top-notch’ members of
the Dergue chaired by Mengistu, made all the policy decisions.

Additionally, while the Council of Ministers, various government bodies and the national
leadership of mass organizations received official recognition in proposing policies, in reality,
however, enormous powers remained with the executive, the President and the party leadership
(Dawit, 1990). In sum, by default or by design, the Presidency, the Council of the State and the
inner circles of the WPE leadership remained the repositories of policymaking powers till 1991.
Implementation through centrally guided institutions, 1974-1987
The prelude
The bulk of the implementing agencies and government institutions had been introduced since
1974, notwithstanding the fact that a few agencies were inherited from the imperial government.
Most of these structures appeared to be volatile, due in part to the uncertainty characterizing a
revolution, partly because clear guidelines to govern the relationships between the Dergue, the
Council of Ministers, ministries, various other government agencies and the fourteen provincial
administrations were almost non-existent Hence, in the first few years of the revolution; the
Dergue had to rely on transient government bodies to execute most of its reforms.

The Dergue depended on, among others, its sub-committees to a considerable degree to preside
over and parallel the civilian ministries. Additionally, despite that fact that they had not held
official government positions, the PMAC assigned a few of its key individual members such as

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liaison to such ministries as transport and communication, housing and urban development,
agriculture and settlement and various other ministries and quasi-governmental agencies.

In a bid to acquire loyal personnel, the PMAC selected over 250 persons from the army and
assigned them to government ministries and nationalized commercial and industrial enterprises
in the capital city and the fourteen administrative regions as permanent secretaries, department
heads and managers (Pliny 1978; Teferra, 1997). The powers and responsibilities of the vigilante
groups, who came to be known as the ‘missionaries of change’ (Yelewout Hawariat), vis-à-vis
professional appointees and experts had not been properly defined. Ranking civilian officials
usually complied with the orders of the military supervisors, while informally indicating their
lack of respect for inexperienced military judgments regarding the professional and technical
problems confronting the government agencies (Cohen and Koehn 1980, 296). Although the
‘missionaries of change’ (Yelewout Hawariat) were ostensibly seen as roving cadres upon whom
the Dergue relied for the implementation of socio-economic reforms, their appointment to
various government institutions nevertheless generated perpetual inefficiency and
mismanagement in the public bureaucracy, and despondency and mistrust among employees.
Furthermore, having had the objectives of explaining socio-economic policies to the regional
administrators, the public and the military units, Dergue members took regular tours throughout
Ethiopia. In mid-1978, the regular tours through the provinces were replaced by postings of
PMAC members as permanent representatives to the regions. Toward the end of 1977 PMAC
posted twelve of its members to the provinces to oversee the implementation of socio-economic
and political policies. Not only the representatives enjoyed enormous powers and seized ultimate
authority in overseeing implementation outcomes, but they also capitalized on their direct
contact with the Standing Committee of the Dergue leadership to override the decisions of
regional and local administrations (ibid.).

However, as the socio-economic transformations and institutional restructuring deepened, and in

view of the recourse to Soviet-style government structures, the transitory structures proved
inadequate. As a result, the wave of proclamations that the PMAC issued in the mid-70s called
for fundamental institutional transformations at the center, and down the line at the regional and
local levels. In other words, the post-revolution government had moved forward to strengthen

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central planning and policy implementation through modifications on the Soviet models and
reliance on central level bureaucratic technicians.
Molding implementing institutions from top
The Council of Ministers, which the Dergue established in the first few years of its coming into
power, consisted of civilian ministers and other high-level government officials appointed by the
chairman of the Dergue (PMAC, 1977, EMI, 1981). Although the legislation assigned the CoM
wide-ranging responsibilities, in reality it remained a clearing-house of legislation and channel of
communication between the military elites and a network of administrative institutions. In mid-
1981, twenty-one ministries, several commissions, authorities and other government agencies
were organized under PMAC/COPWE (EMI, 1981). Following the COPWE/WPE establishment,
not only had party establishments overlapped with the bureaucratic structures, but also ministries
and other implementing agencies had to account to the party and its leadership for all of their
actions. In other words, chiefly because of the ascendance of the party and central planning, the
powers of the government bureaucracy had been severely curtailed. Emerging victorious over the
Somali invading force and civilian opposition, the Dergue’s leverage in reorganizing centrally
controlled implementing structures had substantially been enhanced.

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Figure 3.1. Policy Implementation through State and Party-Led Structures: 1974-1987
PARALLEL STRUCTURES

86
Central and regional policymaking structures of the PDRE
The institutional mechanisms that had over the previous eight years evolved were also used for
much of the duration of the first Republic, except that new names appeared to reflect the 1987
constitution of the PDRE. Officially, however, the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
(PDRE) replaced the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC). The first congress of
the National Shengo adopted legislation introducing new state organs including itself, the
Council of the State, the President, the Procuracy, the Judiciary and the Council of Ministers, as
noted earlier (PDRE, 1987). Designated as the highest executive and administrative organ of
government, the latter became responsible for the implementation of policies that the Shengo, the
standing legislative organ of the Republic (the Council of the State) and the President
formulated.

The second important institutional mechanism that the Institute for the Studies of Nationalities
contributed to PDRE was the reorganization of Administrative Regions into five autonomous
regions and twenty-five administrative regions. The reorganization of administrative regions was
primarily motivated by the desire to streamline the implementation of policies and legislation
made along the then prevailing party thinking.

By 1989 the Council of Ministers became a massive structure spanning the national and regional
implementing agencies, with a prime minister, five deputy prime ministers, twenty ministries,
two state committees, seven commissions, six authorities, two institutes and a central bank under
its jurisdiction. In essentially administrative respects, the newly carved-out five autonomous and
twenty-five administrative regions came under ‘the highest executive and administrative organ’
of the Republic. Much the same as in the Soviet-style republics, the Prime Minister had five
Deputy Prime Ministers working under him, with each Deputy Prime Minister heading a division
Assisted by a secretariat and a group of advisors, the Prime Minster was the head of the
government with wide-ranging powers, although Mengistu appeared to have eclipsed almost all
of the competences of the executive assigned to the CoM as provided under the 1987
constitution. Furthermore, down the line central government establishments had been replicated
at different levels in the hierarchy of administrative structures, with a three-tier structure

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consisting of autonomous and administrative regions (at regional level), provinces (Awerajas),
and neighborhood (Kebele) at a local level. The district (Woreda) that appeared the lowest unit in
the hierarchy of the administrative structure in the imperial period, and a very basic institution of
the administrative apparatus till 1987, was integrated into the provincial structure (Awerajas)
after the constitution came into force. However, not only does the Kebele (neighborhood)
establishment remain the basic unit of administration to this day, but was also was as much at the
center of immense socio-economic and political activities during the Dergue era as it is today.
Endowed with limited executive powers, the implementing agencies operating below national
levels had solely been required to ensure and/or follow up the implementation of policies of the
higher state and party organs (FDRE, 1987). Not only had regional and local assemblies very
limited legislative powers, but central government institutions such as the CoM could also
override their decisions. Nor could administrative organs of the local government implement the
decisions of their respective assemblies without the approval of the central government
institutions (op. cit.). In other words, regional and local government institutions had neither the
powers to formulae policies in a very rudimentary and local sense, nor did they have the leverage
to use the local initiative to execute policies as local circumstances permit.
By 1989, amidst civil war and a malfunctioning economy, regional Shengos (regional
assemblies) had been elected in only eleven of the twenty-five newly designated administrative
regions and three of the five regions designated as autonomous (Hailu, 2003). Excluding Eritrea
and Tigray, where the insurgents grew stronger, the government introduced the structures of the
new Republic in Dire Dawa, Assab and Ogaden. Eleven of the 25 administrative regions singled
out for introducing the PDRE structure included North Wello, South Wello, Metekel, Asosa,
Bale, Gambella, West Hararege, East Hararege, South Omo, North Omo and Wollega (op. cit.).

In retrospect, WPE dominated the entire election process, and party members filled the positions
in Shengos and their respective executive committees (op. cit.). Eventually, the newly emerging
autonomous and administrative regions came under the centralized and strong arm of the party
and the national executive structure. The all too familiar, ‘the hegemony of WPE, democratic
centralism, socialist legality, the primacy of central planning and proletarian internationalism’,
guided the choices of public policies and the modus operandi of policymaking.

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8.1.3 Public policymaking under the EPRDF, 1991-2004
The major actors during the transition, 1991-1995
In the wake of the fall of the Dergue, the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE)
promulgated scores of policy and legislative enactments. A total of one hundred thirtythree (133)
proclamations providing for regional restructuring and regional elections, the powers and duties
of central and regional government agencies, annual and emergency budget legislation,
terminating the institutions of the defunct regime and ratification of multilateral and bilateral
relations with foreign governments had been promulgated during the transition period (the
Minutes of CoR: 1991-1995). The CoR held 114 sessions, 109 plenary and 5 ad-hoc sessions,
with each session extending to two or more meetings. Held in April 1994 for a series of twelve
days to deliberate on the draft constitution, the 94 th Plenary Session marked the highest such
extended meeting. Although the minutes of every session were regularly recorded, it was not
until several months later that they were subject to approval, to such an extent that redressing the
soundness of the records proved beyond reproach. Attendance of all the sessions was properly
recorded and incorporated into the minutes, albeit the volatile nature of the TGE coalition
rendered continuous membership unlikely.

The CoR began its sessions in July with 80 active members, save Addis Ababa University’s
representation, whose seat remained vacant till in fact its representation was annulled in January
1992 (the 36th Plenary Session, March 1994). In September 1991 CoR decided to distribute six
seats to ‘hitherto neglected’ nationalities and thereby expand the number of active CoR members
to 86. However, amidst acrimonious conflict and armed pressure, the major partner in the TGE
coalition, namely the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), withdrew from government in June 1992.
The expulsion of five-coalition partner political organizations from south Ethiopia in February
1993, apparently for their part in the Paris peace conference, reduced the active number of CoR
member organizations and individual members to 22 and 66 respectively.

Taking 1991 as a benchmark, making judgments about the stature of CoR’s non-EPRDF political
organizations and their role vis-à-vis policymaking could to some degree be complicated. After
the withdrawal of the OLF and the expulsion of South Ethiopia’s coalition partners, EPRDF
achieved close to fifty percent majority over the remaining divided and fractious non-EPRDF

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members of the CoR. It was thus selfevident that EPRDF had increasingly ascertained
overwhelming leverage to push any agenda and policy decisions through the Council of
Representatives after the latter half of 1993. Nonetheless, this should not give one the impression
that EPRDF was not well positioned to put its agenda through before mid-1993. Certainly it was,
but the withdrawal and expulsion of 20 non-EPRDF members of the CoR (in an 87-seat
legislature) absolutely guaranteed EPRDF a monopoly on policy agenda setting, and emboldened
its control over the voting system in the CoR and the entire policymaking arena during the
transition in Ethiopia.

Additionally, the legislative enactments that EPRDF had the CoR endorse bolstered its role in
the legislative process. The President of the TGE had in fact been empowered to preside over the
CoR to ensure the implementation of policies, to confer positions on high civil and military
officials, to appoint the Prime Minister and the members of the cabinet, and to call the sessions
of the CoM at his leisure (TGE, 1991). Having had the highest executive and administrative
eminence during the transition, the competences of the latter inter alia included ensuring the
implementation of socio-economic policies, controlling and supervising the activities of the
country’s bureaucracy, preparing the national budget, initiating legislation to be approved by the
CoR (TGE, August 1991). Except for three positions and one deputy ministerial appointment
that went to the OLF and a member of the South Ethiopia coalition partner respectively, the rest
of the cabinet positions with and without portfolios had been assigned to the EPRDF and its
close allies (Kinfe, 1994).
Answerable to the President and the Council of Representatives, the Prime Minister was the head
of the CoM and the entire civil service that provided the EPRDF with the leverage to see whether
government agencies and civil servants observed policies and legislation. In other words, which
individual and institutional players in the TGE commanded a legally mandated (or otherwise)
influence on the policymaking process depended a lot on which group had ample access to the
conduits of the massive powers of the state and its resources.

Hence, despite the fact that the CoR’s vice-chairmanship and the secretary had been assigned to
non-EPRDF members of the CoR, whose organizations held not more than two seats each and
who also had neither the power nor the leverage to influence agenda setting and policymaking,

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the two vital positions, the Presidency and Prime Minister, with enormous powers and leverage,
went to the leaders of EPRDF. Furthermore, apart from having a strong military power that
installed it at the top of the policymaking pyramid, EPRDF allocated itself a controlling number
of seats that earned it and its allies (friendly organizations, so to speak) a comfortable majority to
have the TGE legislature endorse its legislative proposals. So, till the end of June 1992 the
EPRDF had 32 seats (37.2%), and its control over the agenda and voting system with the same
seats steadily grew to 42% after the withdrawal of 12 members of the OLF; the proportion was
scaled up even further to 48.5%, following the expulsion 8 members from the south Ethiopia
Coalition partners. This attests to the fact that the EPRDF was in firm control of the carrot and
the stick, so much so that the few friendly organizations which remained to its side were
rewarded with power and amenities (i.e. the carrot), but had little effect in influencing policies.
In contrast, the many others that resisted EPRDF’s positions, terms and conditions were either
outmaneuvered to withdraw or face their outright expulsion (i.e. the stick).

As is evident from the foregoing discussion, through the majority seats in the TGE legislature
and the key leadership positions in the executive, the new policy elites were poised to propose
and scrutinize the agenda and check their feasibility against EPRDF’s policy blueprints. Despite
the fact that the TGE Charter empowered the transitional legislature to initiate and promulgate
laws and policies, to all intents and purposes, reframing policies to match their designs
increasingly became the exclusive preserve of the new policy elites.

The official policy making institutions, 1995-2004

The House of peoples’ representative ( HPR)
The Ethiopian parliament consists of two chambers, the House of Federation (HoF), and the
House of Peoples’ Representatives (HPR). However, unlike countries practicing a parliamentary
form of government, the former has no legislative powers. The members of the HPR are elected
for 550 seats in parliament for five years from electoral districts constituted as such, with each
district or constituency having a population of 100,000 (FDRE, 1995). For instance, deputies
won 546 and 547 seats in the general elections held in 1995 and 2000 respectively. Despite
objections by the opposition for unfairly allocating advantages to the parties having uninhibited
prior access to state and power resources, deputies to the HPR are elected by the first-past-the-

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post system (plurality of votes cast) (FRDE, 1995; Dessalegn and Meheret, 2004). Twenty seats
are, however, reserved to provide for representation of minority ethnic groups in the HPR. MPs,
as is presumably the case around the world, enjoy immunity from prosecution and/or will not be
subject to any criminal and civil proceedings while attending to legislative duties or be
reprimanded unless caught in flagrante delicto. Members of the HPR shall have the liberty to pay
their allegiance to the constitution, the wish of the people and their conscience, although most of
the opposition and independent members of HRP questioned whether the ruling party’s
(EPRDF’s) members of HPR abide, inter alia, by their conscience41. The twice-weekly
(Tuesdays and Thursdays) plenary sessions of the HPR start towards the beginning of October
and continue to the 9th of July of the following year annually. The HPR is the highest authority
with a wide range of legislative functions (FDRE, 1995: 18). Its powers evolved from the broad
federal jurisdictions assigned to it and the executive. Its competences include passing laws on:
utilization of land, rivers and lakes crossing national boundaries and connecting two or more
national regional states (NRSs); inter-state and foreign trade; air, rail, water transport operating
in two or more NRSs, postal and telecommunication services; enforcing the rights enshrined in
the constitution, including legislating electoral procedures; enacting labor and commercial codes.
The HPR also enacts civil laws, when it so desires and/or requested to do so by the HoF; declares
a state of emergency and state of war as and when the executive demands; approves the broad
socio-economic and fiscal policies of the country, and passes laws on such issues as local
currency, the national bank and foreign exchange; levies taxes and collects duties reserved for
the federal government, and approves the central government’s (federal) budget; ratifies
international agreements concluded by the executive; approves the appointment of judges,
ministers, commissioners and other officials seconded by the executive; establishes the
institutions of human rights and ombudsman; and questions and/or investigates the Prime
Minister and members of the executive (ibid: 21-22). In view of the stringent party lines and
discipline that EPRDF deputies have in fact been enjoined to observe, the latter has never taken
place and is probably unlikely to materialize in the immediate future. The Speaker of the HPR,
and in his absence his deputy, presides over the plenary and ad-hoc sessions, and on behalf of the
House acts as liaison with domestic and international agencies, leads, and administers its affairs
and coordinates the various committees (FDRE, 2002).

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The HPR has the power of legislation, the power to question the Prime Minister and other top
officials of government agencies, to examine both the executive’s handling of its powers and
discharge of its duties, taking measures should these have been misused (FDRE, 1995).
However, party discipline and structure combined with a lack of competence among the bulk of
the MPs, militated against the exercise of their legislative duties detailed in the constitution and
other by laws. In any case, calling the executive to account for its behavior and actions, and
investigating its performances, are the responsibility of the HPR. The Chief Executive (the Prime
Minister), for instance, annually presents himself twice before the House, in October to map out
his plans for the year and in early July for the assessment of his government’s performances
during the year. Nevertheless, in essentially substantive sense of the word-debate (vivacious
debate, as such) - in the HPR takes place, and in some cases acrimonious debate often flares up
between him and the opposition, each time the Prime Minister appears before the House to
deliver reports. Likewise, the head of each ministry or government agency annually delivers
reports outlining action plans for the year, and presents budget appropriations in some detail,
which in most cases are followed by an outline of the accomplishments and problems
encountered in the course of the year.

The House of Federation (HoF): a non-legislative chamber

Elected for five years, the second chamber of the Ethiopian parliament, the House of Federation
(HoF), has come to symbolize ethnic representation and the embodiment of nations, nationalities
and people (NNPs). Although critics claim that the phrases have entirely been borrowed from the
earlier works of Joseph Stalin, the new constitution defines the NNPs as ‘a group of people who
have or share a large measure of common culture or similar customs, mutual intelligibility of
language, common or related belief of identities, a common psychological make up, and who
inhabit an identifiable, predominantly contiguous territory’ (FDRE, 1995: 14, Assafa, 2002). Not
only does a member represent each ethnic community in the HoF, one additional member for
every one million of its population can also represent each ethnic community. As provided under
the new constitution, each state legislature, or, State Council elects representatives to the HoF, or
may opt to have the people elected their representatives (FDRE, 1995, 2001). Two terms having
been served, no popular elections have so far been held to send representatives to the HoF.
Hence, NRSs’ parliaments appointed 108 and 112 members representing 59 and 66 NNPs,

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during the first (1995-2000) and second (2000-2005) terms respectively51. In much the same
way as the members of the HPR, the members of the HoF also enjoy parliamentary immunity
from prosecution. Furthermore, while the presence of twothird of the members constitutes a
quorum, decisions are rather made by a simple majority vote (FDRE, 1995). Although its term of
mandate, as the HPR, is five years, unlike upper houses the world over, it can only sit for two
sessions annually.

Statutes empower the HoF, inter alia, to interpret the constitution, to organize the Council of
Constitutional Inquiry that can assist it in the interpretation of the constitution, to take decisions
on the self-determination of NNPs, including secession as provided for under the constitution, to
promote the equality of the peoples of Ethiopia, to settle disputes, if and when they arise between
two or more NNPs, to determine the division of revenues evolving from central and NRSs tax
sources, to determine formula applicable for the apportionment of subsidies that the central
government earmarks for NRSs (FDRE, 1995, 2001). Of all the responsibilities entrusted to the
HoF, the one that vividly marks the constraints of not being a legislative chamber is that it
merely identifies, but does not legislate, civil matters to be enacted by the HPR (ibid.). It can also
order the central government to deploy its military forces to an NRS, if a constitutional crisis
occurs. The previous term and the current term, which is due to expire in June 2005, the HoF
constituted three committees that by and large reflect its multiple responsibilities, and with each
committee comprising eleven members. The committees include: the State Affairs Standing
Committee, which deals chiefly with overseeing the rights of NNPs for self-determination up to
and including secession; the Revenue Administration Committee helps members determine
revenues that arise from joint tax sources and determine the apportionment of central
government’s subsidies to NRSs; and the Legal Affairs Standing Committee, which examines
and calls on the members to attend to civil cases and constitutional oversight (HoF, 1998). To fill
the deficit caused by the ethnic criteria on the basis of which members to the HoF are appointed,
the constitution provided for the establishment of the Council of Constitutional Inquiry (CCI) to
enhance constitutional interpretation. The latter consists of the President and the Vice-President
of Supreme Court, ex-officio president and vice-president of the CCI, six legal professionals
appointed by the Head of the State, and three members elected by HoF (FDRE, 1995, 2001).
Election of the Head of the State (ceremonial President), listening to his annual address, a

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perceived constitutional disorder in any of the NRSs, and constitutional amendment bring both
houses of the Ethiopian parliament for a joint session (ibid).

In view of the power of legislation, and compared with countries that have long instituted a
parliamentary system of government as Ethiopia has recently had, the HoF is, nevertheless, not
an upper chamber in its true sense of the functions that an upper chamber is called upon to
perform. Canada and the United Kingdom are the leading model parliamentary democracies on
which the framers of the Ethiopian constitution professed to have modeled the Ethiopian
parliamentary system of government (Kifle, 2001). To the contrary, the Canadian Senate enjoys
the power of legislation in much the same manner as the House of Lords of the UK and the
Council of Provinces of the South African Parliament, although the ultimate decisions and much
more policymaking powers lies in the lower chambers (the House of Commons in Canada and
UK, and the Legislative Assembly in South Africa) than the upper houses. In fact, the House of
Lords in the UK is also the highest court. To all intents and purposes, the Ethiopian ‘upper
house’ the House of Federation, is nothing but a house of nations, nationalities and peoples
(NNPs), and it simply epitomizes the pre-commitments that the sponsors of the current Ethiopian
constitution cherished during their protracted war with the Dergue. Put differently, both in spirit
and in practice it is an embodiment of ethnic representation, but with the formula predetermined
by the sponsors. The HoF, therefore, unlike its counter-parts in the UK, Canada, South Africa
and most other upper chambers around the world, has no power of legislation, albeit with an
extraordinary stubborn commitment to the NNPs, as the pronouncements in the constitution by
and large stipulate.

Moreover, in the upper chambers of Canada, the UK and South Africa the opposition and the
independent MPs have unrestricted access not only to be elected as members, but also have an
unreserved right to participate in the debates on policy and legislative matters. On the contrary,
while it is difficult to ascertain the exact figures of party affiliation for all the members of the
HoF, the appointments of members of the HoF by NRSs’ Councils, which are overwhelmingly
dominated by the ruling party, with all the seats won by EPRDF affiliates as in Amhara and
Tigray NRSs, would attest to the fact that it is much less likely for the opposition and
independent elements to make their debut in HoF. Far worse, the house, which decides on vital

95
issues such as the interpretation of the constitution, self-determination up to and including
secession, and the sharing of national wealth, is totally inaccessible to civil society and the public
at large, nor has there been any channel of communication linking the non-state actors to the
HoF, so much so that the former have little or no space for influencing the critical policy
decisions of such serious of fundamental importance that affect their lives.

The executive: spearheading the legislative/policymaking/ process

The 1987 PDRE’s constitution vested the ceremonial and executive powers in the Head of the
State (i.e. the President), although some portion of the executive and administrative powers had
also been assigned to the Head of Government (i.e. the Prime Minister) (PDRE, 1987). The
current constitution entirely reversed the allocation of powers, assigning the Head of the State
(i.e. the President) and the Head of Government (i.e. the Prime Minister) ceremonial and
enormous executive powers respectively. Nominated by the HPR, the joint session of the two
houses of the Ethiopian parliament elects the President of the FDRE by a two-third majority.
Unlike the parliament whose term of mandate expires after five years, the president’s term of
office is for 6 years, and he can continue in office for another term. The constitutional design for
the parliament and the executive’s stay in office a year less than the President is to establish a
continuity of government and linkage between the preceding and the forthcoming terms (Fasil,
1997). In any case, the latter’s duties are invariably nominal. Among others, these include
addressing the joint session of the parliament annually, appointing ambassadors, granting high
military titles, and decorating high domestic and foreign dignitaries with medals and prizes, of
course, after having been recommended by the Prime Minister (FDRE, 1995). The constitution
assigned the President little role in the policymaking process. He signs bills into laws following
their approval by the HPR, although laws can still take effect within fifteen days with or without
his signature (ibid.). Enormous policymaking power in Ethiopia is vested in the executive. The
latter is comprised of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers (CoM). Although the
‘election’ of the President and the Prime Minister is often concluded at the party forums behind
the parliamentary scenes, the joint session of parliament and the HPR designate the President and
the Prime Minister respectively as provided for in the constitution. Hence, elected by the HPR
for five years, the Prime Minister is the chief executive officer, the chairman of the CoM, and the

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commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the country (FDRE, 1995). The current constitution
limits the Head of State’s term of office to two; ironically, it is silent on the Head of
Government’s term of stay in office, though the latter possesses such a huge responsibility and
enormous powers that are susceptible as to be misused. The Prime Minister can have the HPR
approve his nominees for the ministerial positions who, together with him, constitute the second
leg of the executive (ibid.). He presides over the entire implementation process of laws and
socio-economic and foreign policies of the country.

Consisting of the Prime Minister, his deputy, heads of the ministries and other government
officials whom the PM wishes to be members, the second aspect of the executive constitutes the
Council of Ministers (CoM) (FDRE, 1995, PMO, 2003). Its competences revolve around the
initiation, formulation and supervision of the implementation of socio-economic and foreign
policies (ibid.). In fact, despite being subject to approval by the HPR, the CoM has control over
the power of the purse, essentially because the latter remains in the limelight for much of the
formulation, arrangement and the execution of the budget. The CoM holds regular sessions once
in a week, and conducts emergency sessions when situations requiring such meetings arise.
Besides, performance evaluation sessions are scheduled quarterly, or four times annually. Half of
the members the Council of Ministers constitute a quorum, and decisions are madeby a simple
majority vote.

Nevertheless, one should not fail to stress that, in the Ethiopian context; the machinery of the
legislative process starts rolling from the premises of the executive and is concluded with the
seal of approval in the parliament building.

The legislatures as legitimating institutions of policy decisions

The predominance of the party in every sphere of public life, coupled with the zeal with which
revolutionary democratic objectives are advocated, generate an exclusive interest in, and claim
on, public policies. Party ranks at higher levels primarily decide policy matters, for the most part
immediately preceding the adoption of the same by legislative bodies. Once consensus has been
reached on the lunatic fringes in the party and executive leadership, policy decisions are pushed
through for government institutions to formalize, legitimate and implement them. The

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parliaments, both national and NRSs, are the chief instruments of legitimizing the policy
decisions of party and executive leadership, although concerns and questions still persist among
the civil society leaders and academics concerning how far legislatures of such stature overcome
the overriding challenges of the imbalance between policymaking institutions and policy
beneficiaries in Ethiopia. For some, the party and executive leadership’s overwhelming leverage
in public policymaking as much rests on constitutional guarantees as on the majority seats in the
parliament. In other words, the Constitution sets the rules and defines parameters for how should
policies be made and executed, and who should do so; thus not only are the party and the
executive acting accordingly, but also do they see no wrong in this exercise EPRDF, in its own
assertions, reinforces this point:
Only when a political party seizes state power that it can translate the demands of the
social group that it represents into concrete deeds. Since a political party is established
based on the good will of the forerunners who adopt and promote its objectives, it hardly
accomplishes the objectives it sets out till the vanguards are elected to assume
government offices. A political party should therefore target political power as a major
goal, and then use that power to translate its program into effect. This can range from
having its program objectives and strategies incorporated into the constitution to
transforming it into government policies and strategies. Not only does it use state power
to make laws and policies, but also should advantageously use it to implement policies
and programs. The assumption of state power per se therefore is both a goal and an
essential tool for the achievement of party objectives.
However, the making of the constitution has largely been flawed, and the socio-political order
that evolves from it is bound to be suspect, as empirical evidence showed.

Although constitutional and statutory provisions have clearly bolstered the leverage of the
executive and party leadership, the issue at stake and of vital importance is how far has this
affected the legislatures and with what effects. The party, in practice often but not always led by
the Prime Minister, controls the government; the parliament is totally dominated by the EPRDF,
and in practice is only an organ to rubberstamp government decisions.

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Furthermore, the party controls the local administration, particularly in rural areas, and by that
the population and the elections. Officially Ethiopia is a parliamentary democracy, but much
takes place behind the scenes, and the key party figures, with the Prime Minister as the
outstanding figure, have the power to make and unmake the power base of any participant in the
system, whatever that base may be (popularity shown in elections, prominence in the public
discussion, leading administrator, etc.). The anomaly lurking behind the constitutional order,
however, is that it breeds a glaring imbalance between the legislature and the executive. The
constitution introduces a parliamentary form of government, and one probably would see little
problem with the EPRDF instituting a parliamentary structure, for it is one of the most
democratic systems. Similar structures abound the world over; the UK, Canada and Israel are
classic cases, just to name a few of the well-established parliamentary democracies. Apparently,
the parliamentary form of government requires the PM and the bulk of the associates of the
executive to be drawn from the parliament, and thus they are accountable to the parliament104.
Nevertheless, in countries without a well-developed and nurtured democracy, and pluralistic
political culture are significantly absent, vibrant civil society organizations (CSOs) and a strong
opposition are non-existent, such as Ethiopia, the system is likely to promote the exclusive power
of the executive leadership. What makes the Ethiopian political system even more interesting
than similar situations elsewhere, is that a single party occupies well over 95% of the seats in the
parliament As a result, not only does the party establish the government, but the members of
parliament and the executive also belong to one party. Therefore, instead of the parliament
controlling the executive, ironically, the executive is effectively controlling the parliament in
Ethiopia. Additionally, the Prime Minister is the leader of both the party as well as the executive,
for the PM has to balance all relevant institutions. The party and the executive have, certainly, a
predominant role as well as leverage in policymaking in Ethiopia. In contrast, despite the fact
that the UK has a similar structure, the opposition parties are so strong that they can counter-
balance and challenge the actions of the executive. Equally important, if value conflicts within
the party in power in the UK, the ruling party MPs have virtually no fear in challenging their
party and its leadership if they find their party advocating misguided policies, nor do the
opposition MPs fear any harassment and reprisals if they challenge the ruling party106. Put
differently, the ruling party MPs in parliamentary democracies, unlike in Ethiopia, are more

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accountable to their conscience than to party ideology. This by far sets the Ethiopian
parliamentary system apart from other parliamentary democracies.

The establishment of separate legislative and executive institutions in Ethiopia is considered as

the division of labor within the EPRDF, whereby a segment of the EPRDF and its supporters
constitute the legislature and another subdivision forms the executive. The balance of power and
attendant checks and balances that underpin the separation of power in its substantive sense is
left nothing to be desired. One party has dominated the legislative as well as the executive, so
much so that national and NRS parliaments symbolize a single party state in all substantive and
imaginable senses of the concept. The last thirteen years has, therefore, witnessed a single party
dominating the entire process of policymaking in Ethiopia.

This would mean that the legislature has little choices of exploring alternative public policies
beyond the confines of the established party lines. Moreover, this has been complicated by the
inner party ‘democracy’ and discipline that militate against creative initiative, for party members
are barely allowed to promote ideas other than those of the party. Personal choices made
otherwise are considered seditious actions against the party, so are subject to admonitory
measures, which may include severe reproaches at best, and expulsion from party and
parliamentary membership at worst113 (EPRDF, 2003a). In other words, conceived primarily on
the basis of revolutionary democratic ideals, party members have virtually been assigned seats in
the legislatures in so far as they promote these goals. The same party document resentfully cited
several incidences party members in the HPR acting in breach of the basic belief system of
EPRDF. Among others the bills sent by the executive (PMO) to provide for the revision of the
Charter of Addis Ababa City Government, anti-corruption legislation and the motion put forth to
augment the executive’s leverage in the mass media board were classic cases in which the
loyalty of EPRDF MPs faltered and for which they were severely chastised (EPRDF, 2003a: 66).
Not only has this been seen as an infringement of the constitutional guarantees of free expression
of one’s views, but the MPs have also been reduced to party puppets who should put their hands
out when they are told to do so, in support of party-sponsored legislation and motions. In other
words, MPs are merely considered as manufacturers of party-sponsored proclamations and
professional attendees of wearisome executive narratives. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note,

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on the other hand, that for most EPRDF MPs, it serves no purpose to be a member of a party,
unless one firmly promotes the goals of the party and supports it in all its dealings. The
opposition parties should rather table any challenge to the proposals of the ruling party, but not
the EPRDF members. Having seen no difference between party and the executive leadership,
some ruling party members of the HPR have bestowed enormous trust on the executive, in terms
of the capability to articulate policies and the competence to implement them. They are very
strongly and candidly of the view that not only they have no objections to the executive presiding
over or prevailing on the entire policymaking process, but there is also nothing wrong for the
executive to command an overwhelming influence, for many of the persons in the executive are
members of the HPR representing their positions. They further contended that officials in the
executive are also in the political leadership (or are party leaders); thus they are in a better
position than the legislature to be able to articulate and forge policies along party lines. The
members of the executive, EPRDF MPs contended, are close to the world of politics as well as
knowledgeable, so much so that they are better placed to initiate laws and formulate policies.
What is more, these EPRDF MPs see nothing unconventional for the party and the executive
leadership having overwhelming influence in the policymaking and legislative process, not only
because the party and the executive leadership possess, expertise, knowledge and competence in
formulating policies and legislation by far better than MPs, but they also have the statutory
power and access to resources to be able to marshal them for the execution of laws as well as
policies.

Some EPRDF MPs have, on the contrary, perceived that the party has been engaged in a
disciplining and muffling exercise, through a series of evaluations (Gimgema) carried out
continuously around the residential areas. In other words, party rules and discipline, which have
little official recognition in the HPR, weigh against the free expression of views in the
parliamentary deliberations. In fact, for some of EPRDF MPs even a slightest deviation from
party lines may endanger one’s career, may even mean the loss of one’s parliamentary seat, and
so they are careful ‘not to make any mistake’ that would embarrass party branch functionaries
assigned to monitor and defend the ruling party’s interests. Stuck between their personal
conscience and public political life, some EPRDF MPs, therefore, continue to live in a climate of
fear and angst.

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In short, the legislative process is far more complicated than one would imagine. The Ethiopian
lower house, the HPR, has been fraught with a legion of problems. Primarily, the MPs are not
meant to question the laws and other proposals delivered to them from the party and the
executive, although MPs are accountable to the electorate, to their conscience and to the
Constitution; as provided under the current Constitution. To say the least, stringent party
requirements are imposed on the EPRDF MPs, who constitute the great majority in the HPR, to
vote for any legislation sent to the House by the executive, regardless of their consent.

Second, while there is division of labor between the legislature and the executive, the separation
of power, which is at the hub of checks and balances between the former and the latter, is non-
existent. Third, even if the House has constitutional guarantees to closely control the actions of
the executive, the ability and expertise among most of MPs for such an oversight role has left
much to be desired. Nor is the Secretariat of the House staffed with experts, so much so that they
get the assistance/advice from the experts that this endeavor calls for or to be able to adequately
discharge their legislative responsibilities over the executive. In other words, not only is there a
dire shortage of professional and administrative support staff, but the available employees have
not been well enough organized for the MPs to be able to subpoena the executive. Till the end of
May 2004, for instance, only 31% of the required staff had been acquired. A more glaring and
acute staff shortage has conspicuously surfaced in the areas where it has been badly needed,
namely in the fields of professional legal support and research. Of the 329 support staff
employed by HPR, professional staff constitutes only 18.5% (61 employees) of the total support
staff, with low pay and declining morale characterizing almost or all of them.
Fourth, led and controlled by the Speaker and his deputy, the parliament’s secretariat is less one
of providing effective leadership, which could have brought the MPs with more experiential
learning and capacity-building exercises, than of protecting party interests, although there has
been cautious optimism in this regard over the past two years. The Speaker and Deputy Speaker
of the HPR more often than not discourage lively discussions and debates in the HPR. In fact,
thorough deliberations have been discouraged, especially when the opposition and independent
MPs raise queries and contentious issues, for which they have been very swiftly undermined.
Last, the weak intellectual capacity of most of the opposition MPs to be able to generate

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meaningful alternatives as well as the political skills to garner support in the House’s legislative
debates, coupled with the preeminence of one party, have reduced the HPR into being a mere
manufacturer of legislation, and MPs into professional consumers of mind-numbing annual
reports of heads of the government.

Reading Books

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