Indigenisation policy in the extractive sector in Zimbabwe

Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientifc Revolutions has infuenced the understanding of paradigms and paradigm shift in social sciences. Kuhn ([1962]1996, p. 3) defned paradigm as “an accepted model or pattern” about the underlying assumptions, theories, thought, procedures, orientations and laws shared by members of a scientifc community within a particular scientifc feld, e.g. quantum computing or physics. Although Kuhn initially developed it to describe and explain the scientifc developments in the natural sciences, the concept of paradigms has been extensively applied in the social sciences, particularly in policy sciences. Hall (1993) introduces policy paradigm to mean a policy framework of standards and ideas that articulates the following: (a) the policy problems to be addressed; (b) the policy goals; (c) the policy instruments to be used to achieve the policy goals and address the policy problems. For Ngok and Huang (2014), a policy paradigm is a binding ideology that stabilises a policy. However, a policy paradigm shift happens when the existing paradigm becomes weak; that is, the policy instruments no longer efectively respond to policy problems. A new policy paradigm is justifed here as it proposes new policy solutions to the existing policy problems. A policy paradigm shift represents a radical change in policy interpretation initiated by anomalous events within the existing paradigm (Ngok and Huang 2014).

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Published in: Routledge Handbook of Public Policy in Africa
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003143840-38