The Constructive Role of Ambiguity in the Policy Process - Essay Example

?The Constructive Role of Ambiguity in the Policy Process Introduction It is ill-advised to believe that the goal of public policy formation and implementation is constantly clear or understandable. There are aspects left unclear, on purpose, so that large numbers of individuals with diverse points of view can discern their beliefs embodied in a similar ‘ambiguity’. Due to several factors, such as uncertainty, poor documentation, ineptitude, and time constraints, although policy consistently holds an intention, that intention may not constantly be simple to understand (Hill 1993). According to Lane (2000), elaborate policy procedures may be ambiguous, mainly due to incongruities between political interests and goals and current legislation. Furthermore, contradictions between long-term and short-term goals are likely to bring in ambiguities in policy formation and implementation, as well as compromises between irreconcilable intentions, like protected natural reservoir and dam projects. This essay discusses the positive contributions of ambiguities to policy formation and implementation, particularly in the sectors of health and environment. More importantly, the discussion tries to demonstrate how these ambiguities provide an opportunity to successfully and productively integrate diverse perspectives, worldviews, and values of different stakeholders, as well as how such ambiguities create and strengthen a system of participation. Strain brought about by ambiguities in policy formation and implementation may have serious ramifications on the opportunity to develop a rational policy-making process and employ practical systematic instruments for priority setting (Birkland 2010). There is a need for ambiguities to be recognised and organised, normally in a course of increased stakeholder involvement with an emphasis on social concerns instead of procedural concerns only. An Overview of the Pros and Cons of Ambiguity in the Policy Process Ambiguity may be not as much of a tactical tool used by policy-makers as they wish than an unavoidable outcome of the political mechanism. It is thought that implementation becomes unsuccessful because system of government is either not adequately capable or unduly independent (Hill & Hupe 2002). Nevertheless, the complexity innate in realising effective implementation, that is, the alleged ‘implementation deficit’ (Lane 2000, 106), may reveal a much more severe risk to the notion of policy implementation. According to Birkland (2010), the policy system could function to make ambiguity general in each and every policy. Hence, policy implementation becomes unsuccessful not due to a discrepancy between sound policy formation and inadequate policy implementation but because of the policy’s inaccuracy. More importantly, it is claimed that policy is inseparable from implementation, that, in contrast, policy is only recognisable in the implementation process. Thus, the entire notion of a policy framework could be relegated to the mere study of public governance or organisational research (Lipsky 1971). However, if ambiguity in the policy-making process were as common as argued, if policy were the consequence of implementation, then is it possible that policy ambiguity assists policy formation and implementation? Ambiguity, far from being an impediment or an abnormality, is a necessary component of policy process. It has disadvantages because it causes disorder, chaos, and uncertainty in policymaking. Ambiguity obliges experts to have plenty of information (Sabatier 2007). However, a great deal of information will not automatically eliminate ambiguity; it will only increase the clarity of the process. According to Colebatch (2009), perspective rather than intention becomes crucial. Resolutions seldom mitigate difficulties; they only apply or work them out. Nevertheless, ambiguity also confers advantages. Improvement thrives because it grants new insights an opportunity to be implemented to work out old issues. It allows disagreement or inconsistency to be scattered because clashing parties can relate their own analysis to the outcome of the decision (Fischer 2003). It provides the opportunity to deal with numerous issues all together. Because priorities can be developed as the process continues, the number of problems that can be attended to simultaneously can be securely raised without a consequent boost in cognitive ability, time, or previous planning (Hill & Hupe 2002). In this domain, resources, situation, and time are critical leverages. The policy process embraces choice. Choice involves self-determination. Ambiguity boosts self-determination because more alternatives can be taken into consideration and extraneous but serious concerns may be dealt with. A completely ambiguous situation could be unbearable because ‘anything goes’ (Zahariadis 2003, 168). Opportunely, there are limitations and controls. The theory of multiple streams looks at the consequences of these spatial and temporal limitations on policy options. If it is in fact an exact portrait of the policy process, the theory can be effectively applied to clarify and possibly modify it and, more essential, to formulate approaches for dealing with it (Zahariadis 2003). The amount and range of issues are massive to be ignored. Ultimately, it is essential to acknowledge that ambiguity usually have vital political purposes. Trying to meet the demands of various interest groups simultaneously, public policies usually involve a string of ambiguous views and guidelines that hold logical contradictions. Due to the possible illogicality of policy-making, policy experts have dedicated much effort in formulating methods for avoiding this problematic attribute of political reality (Jupille 2004). Nevertheless, they have totally overlooked the extent to which this effort allows clashing parties to discover ways to turn their disagreements into something positive. By contributing to the effort of uniting citizens with diverse policy views, ambiguity normally cultivates collaboration and conciliation. Allowing policymakers to conceal or cloud difficult repercussions of debatable resolutions, ambiguity can help in avoiding setbacks that otherwise hamper the development of compromise (Matland 1995). People who gain from a similar policy but for diverse motives can more easily come across an opportunity to be of the same mind and opinion. According to Cobb and Elder (1983), the ambiguity of meanings offers a medium through which varied interests, views, and prospects are coordinated to facilitate collective effort. Many studies have demonstrated the manner policymakers try to meet demands to act upon problems by ratifying ambiguous decrees with ambiguous symbols. Policymakers can appease both parties in disagreement by persuasively giving support to one party but making the concrete resolution more in support of the other party (Vinovskis 2001). By making both parties more comfortable with a policy compromise, policymakers can make consensus and cooperation possible by letting rivals on both parties of an issue to declare victory from a particular policy resolution. Since ambiguity permits members to interpret themselves joint decisions and activities, individuals can resolve their personal unsure and changeable outlooks (Ingram & Schneider 1990). Thus, policy ambiguity encourages alliances to unite. It can subdue opposition to policies by restoring confidence while concrete policies break up. Ambiguity in Health Policy An aspect that facilitated public approval for health programmes in the United Kingdom was the health policies’ ambiguity. Regardless of how rational and inherently structured policies seemed to be, they were constantly divided by conflicting goals and motives. Due to the conflicts, health policies were in harmony with several political outlooks (Hunter 2003). Individuals embracing quite distinct perspectives, such as feminism, socialism, and fundamentalism, might all observe that health policies represented, to a degree, their beliefs, goals, and motives (Niemi 2007). David Vincent, in studying the 1906 and 1914 welfare reform in Britain, argues likewise, stating that “most Labour MPs saw [these reforms] as a stepping-stone towards something much better, and many Liberals regarded them as a bulwark against something much worse” (Niemi 2007, 161). Moreover, ambiguity in the policy process of the health sector functioned to limit disagreements in a different way. According to Hann (2007), the inconsistencies in policies and the disagreements of views among health representatives gave the ‘average’ resident the chance to voice their opinions and to take part in the policy settlement. The political domain is not only about power, rivalry, and disagreement, whether obvious or hidden. Uncertainty and ambiguity are general attributes with regard to policy formation and execution. It is a narrow-minded description of the political sector to think that it is merely at hand where there is conflict and power competition (Hunter 2003). According to Heclo, “politics finds its sources not only in power but also in uncertainty—men [sic] collectively wondering what to do” (Hunter 2003, 21). Governing bodies and their representatives not merely engage in power relations, they confuse as well. As further argued by Heclo, “policy-making is a form of collective puzzlement on society’s behalf; it entails both deciding and knowing” (Vinovskis 2001, 24). Mentions of opposing arguments should not be understood to suggest that every, or even the major attribute of, social politics is power play and disagreement (Vinovskis 2001). According to Hann (2007), given that the problems confronted in health politics are quite complicated, the leading complexity may be not the use of political determination, but the motivation of that determination is, or should be. Simply put, the condition facing legislators could be less of vying for control and more of dealing with ambiguity or the potentially unsolvable problems of health policy. An absolute power framework is inadequate to clarify each and every outcome of a policy. The input of the ‘health issue’ to uncertainty and ambiguity cannot be exaggerated (Niemi 2007). The issue originates from a string of core ambiguities. To begin with, a population’s health condition, and the ways to better it, is still hazy. It is not needed to dig in deeper to find solutions to such problems before swiftly becoming caught in the intricacies present in evaluating whether bigger public venture in the health sector in fact gives citizens good health (Orme et al. 2007). According to Mooney and Loft (Hunter 2003, 22): medical decision-making attempts, inter alia, to analyse the often difficult relationship between certain types of health care inputs (for example, those comparing certain treatment regimes) and certain types of health outputs—and in a world of uncertainty. How this is actually done is itself shrouded in uncertainty or more accurately ignorance. However, UK’s health issues are more complicated and involve the core function of the National Health Service (NHS). The major question is, does NHS address illnesses or advance wellbeing? Quite distinct techniques are suggested by each task (Niemi 2007). Furthermore, and several of the policy declarations with regard to better health instead of health care are within this category, numerous objectives are expressed at a glorified point of intangibility which makes their accomplishment very difficult (Niemi 2007). As stated by Orme and colleagues (2007), at times, the objectives may be vague or theoretical so as to hide inconsistencies or, in any case, to make sure they stay hidden, such as the predisposition for health care to prevail in health policy. Thus, the notion of power could be liable for, or at least be a causal variable to, the apparent ambiguity. However, it is possible to assume that a key root of ambiguity rests in uncertainty (Hunter 2003). For that reason, according to Lipsky, “when there are uncertainties over what will or will not work, there is greater room for admitting and tolerating a variety of approaches and objectives. In such an intention there is often a hunger for discovering successful techniques” (Hunter 2003, 23). Therefore, ambiguity mostly assists policy formation and implementation in the health sector. Ambiguity in Environmental Policy The comprehensive framework states that dealing with ambiguity is basically a social mechanism. It is founded on interpreting the inherent ambiguity reported by numerous policymaking attempts and the significance of merging diverse points of view in problem-solving activities in a system of participation, that is, the institutions and people engaged in policy formation and implementation and that manner they work together, so as to address positively such ambiguity (Eccleston & March 2010). This ambiguity, as will be demonstrated in some examples of environmental policy-making, produces a system of participation. The formation of this system could be intentional or merely accidental (Eccleston & March 2010). According to Ahmed and Triana (2008), a directive, like Wales’s centrally stated environmental policies, can spell out the extent of involvement in policy formation and implementation; administrators and other contributors may do something to widen the foundation of involvement to encompass various experiences and ‘world views’ or to limit the scope of participation and prohibit diverse experiences and ‘world views’. However, systems of participation are formed and re-formed even with the absence of deliberate attempts of policymakers, administrators, or other partakers; groups and people ebb and flow in policy-making as choice occasions appear. Systems of participation become broader as the groups of stakeholders who see one another as holding a rightful function to serve in a collective process of problem solving heightens (Zahariadis 2003). The nature of the system of participation affects the decisions made, and the decisions made affect the character of the system of participation. The system evolves in due course and in reaction to policy formation and implementation (Barrett 2004). Thus, ambiguity is revealed in the attempts to uncover programmes that the system can support and take part in. The policy-making process involved in the distribution of water from a basin in a small area in Northeastern Brazil, demonstrates the relationship between ambiguity and uncertainty, as well as the usefulness of ambiguity in this case (Ahmed & Triana 2008). The procedure includes uncertainty, in the sense that the correct volume of water to be released from a basin in any particular period and the consequences of the release are indefinite. Such uncertainty can be worked out by several techniques, such as technical patterning of different volumes of water release. No matter how such uncertainty is addressed, the procedure includes ambiguity as well, for there are various methods of appraising the water and evaluating the results of decisions (Ahmed & Triana 2008). According to Eccleston and March (2010), the following issues will be addressed in a different way by people with distinct points of view: water’s most valuable uses, the appropriateness of experiential or scientific methods of evaluating possible measures, and the tolerable level of risk. The water department team carried out an investigation in 2001 to evaluate the volume of water in the old basin. Due to the massive amount of eroded soil, it was very hard to assess the volume of accessible water. Attempts to work out this uncertainty showed disparities in understanding (Ahmed & Triana 2008). Technical problems with the quantifying tools generated approximations that the community obtained with heightened uncertainty but that the water department was eager to employ as a support for discharging water. The department drew on this information to determine an approximation for water discharge and made a decision to release water for that reason. Informed of the inhabitants’ resistance to discharging water, the local basin administrator requested for police support when he began the release. Inhabitants organised to oppose the discharge; after the law enforcers went off, they damaged the regulator to make sure the water would not be discharged (Ahmed & Triana 2008). Such acts revealed ambiguity as regards to the significant dissimilarities in the ways that inhabitants and water department personnel assessed water and what measures they believed are necessary. According to Ahmed and Triana (2008), the system of participation here is composed of inhabitants and water department personnel. The character of this system was conflict-ridden. Inhabitants and water department personnel were not cooperating to transform their differences into something constructive. Opportunities for communication between inhabitants and the water department were restricted by the inhabitants’ view of illegality related to the procedural, approximated data, and by the certainty of the water department personnel that there was sufficient water to discharged counter to the inhabitants’ doubt about the reliability of the information and their unwillingness to shoulder the possibility of having inadequate water for use. Throughout the following years, conflict between these parties continued. An assembly was conducted annually where in the water department suggested discharging water. Inhabitants opposed the suggestions, at assemblies that were distinguished by obvious tension. Even though agreement was finally attained, the system of participation stayed basically fragmented (Eccleston & March 2010). The 2001 research, the planned water discharge, inhabitants’ resistance, and the dregs of built up conflict from the consequent assemblies created a decisive setting to the 2005 assembly. Inhabitants had a new spokesperson, a school administrator. The water department also had new members, plus the participant from the department assigned to organise residents (Ahmed & Triana 2008). According to Colebatch (2009), these representatives had the capacity to change social relations by enabling open communication between water department personnel and inhabitants. The assembly started with a report of scientific information by an administrator from the water department. At the end of his report, he invited comments and questions from the audience and proposed that inhabitants choose among the alternatives he had given. His invitation went unanswered. After a while, the school administrator expressed his mind and stated that he believed the community participants had no desire to discuss the alternatives. His remark incited a torrent of unexpressed grievances by residents (Ahmed & Triana 2008). The water department personnel paid attention. When the tense situation subsided, they portrayed the issue from their point of view. They clarified the procedural setbacks with the research and stressed that the research had been performed by individuals outside the department before the department had been assigned to the basin project. By the conclusion of the assembly two developments had emerged. First, the system of participation had transformed. Second, water department personnel and residents made an agreement not to discharge water from the basin for the next year (Ahmed & Triana 2008). The grievances, listening, and elaborating created a positive transformation in the way individuals interacted with one another. Water department personnel had a greater knowledge and appreciation of the perspective of community participants, and community participants had a greater knowledge and appreciation of the situation department personnel were in. Before everybody departed, an educator expressed gratitude to the administrators for visiting their community and emphasised that the residents were aware that the administrators were not to be held responsible for the programmes of the organisation and that the community was fond of them as people but could not allow any possibility of depleting their water (Eccleston & March 2010). All these positive developments were made possible by ambiguity in the formulation and implementation of the water policy. The new system of participation entailed identifying the limitations and issues of both groups. This identification led to a more good-natured network of relationships, which created the foundation of the agreement in 2005 concerning water release from the basin. In the recreated system of participation, scientific understanding did not govern social and political issues raised by inhabitants (Ahmed & Triana 2008). Consequently, according to Eccleston and March (2010), both residents and water department personnel became contributors in another form of system of participation, where in the course of working out uncertainty about the amount of water to discharge was believed to have repercussions for the character of the community. In the same way, the policy process of Water UK demonstrates how attempts to work out uncertainty about the volume of water to be discharged and the methods of determining that water reveal ambiguities associated with various means of appraising water and various interpretations about the level of risk to tolerate in water use from sewerage services. It demonstrates how attempts to deal with uncertainty affect the formation of a system of participation and the capacity of that system to resolve these ambiguities (Eccleston & March 2010). Moreover, it proves how the resolving of such ambiguities affects the character and structure of the system of participation. Water UK’s attempt to resolve ambiguities inherent to its policy-making process facilitated a system of cooperation between residents, water companies, and the government. According to The View (2012), continued flow of investment from water companies improves local economies all over England and Wales, which consequently improves provision of water services for residential uses. The above cases demonstrate the constant mechanisms that affect the system of participation and the measures that are implemented. Measures performed reveal ambiguities that necessitate the system of participation to resolve them. The course of resolving ambiguities forms and reforms the system of participation. The course is unbroken. New ambiguities surface as minor contributors become more important and individuals who have not contributed become partakers. The manner such ambiguities are addressed will have repercussions for the continuous formation of the policy system (Mazmanian & Sabatier 1983). In community farmers, whose views coincide to a certain extent but not completely with other inhabitants, there remain a feeling that their opinion is not considered and their contribution in the system of participation is not as important as those of either water department personnel or inhabitants (Ahmed & Triana 2008). If farmers are involved, more ambiguities will undoubtedly surface. Furthermore, as the system of participation creates opportunities for working out uncertainties about the appropriate method of measuring accessible water and the appropriate amount of water to be discharged, more uncertainties will surface. For example, if water is discharged in the following years, there will be issues about the particular uses of this water (Eccleston & March 2010). These emergent uncertainties will expose emergent ambiguities and new possible contributors in the system of participation. Meanwhile, legislative ambiguity and the expression of wide-ranging societal objectives enhance the unrestricted authority of the departments and managers assigned to implement policies. Similar to all laws, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has its own ambiguity (Anderson 1999). For instance, the original description of NEPA of ‘major federal action’ depends on each department, even though the Council on Environmental Quality is legally in charge of the act’s administrative supervision and had developed policies delineating the language of NEPA (Anderson 1999, 166). The discretion of the departments and the diverse understandings of the language of NEPA create excellent opportunity for judicial involvement and demonstration. Thus, the diversity of NEPA’s formulation and implementation may be expected in a policy process exposed to ambiguity and a course of implementation that facilitates executive judgment (Anderson 1999). In fact, according to Fischer (2003), both judgment and ambiguity served crucial functions in NEPA’s creation, ratification, and implementation. Conclusions and Findings The discussion, as well as the various examples given, demonstrates the vital role that ambiguity plays in policy formation and implementation, both in the health and environmental sectors. As illustrated in Britain’s welfare reform in 1906 and 1914, ambiguity paves the way for a greater cooperation and integration of diverse views and beliefs. It also provided the opportunity for the ‘average’ citizen to take part in the policy process. Moreover, the ambiguity in NHS’s actual task opens up the possibility of accurately tackling the appropriate techniques for improved health and health care. Likewise, the recognition of ambiguity in the policy process helps the environmental sector deal with the inherent conflicts by creating a system of participation. This system of participation is continuous. 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