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The politics of public policy in Africa

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submitted on 2023-09-12, 05:33 and posted on 2023-09-13, 09:24 authored by Michael Kpessa-Whyte

Since the early post-colonial era, African countries have been engaged in designing and implementing public policies. However, compared to other parts of the world, the study of public policy as an academic discipline has not been given adequate attention in the region. In most cases, public policies in African countries have been studied from the banal lenses of development and underdevelopment (Himmelstrand et al. 1994). While development discourses help understand the mega ideational paradigms shaping development paths (Mkandawire 2014), they fail to highlight the conceptual paths foregrounding policymaking and administration in Africa. Although a lot has been written about the twists and turns in African politics and social transformation, the general tendency has been to view challenges and problem-solving eforts in Africa from a developmental standpoint (Mkandawire 2001). The inclination to analyse issues about the human condition and governance in Africa from development has resulted in a neglect of public policy study as a distinct feld and deprived us of conceptual analysis that engages public policy and administration trajectories.

Other Information

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/10.4324/9781003143840-27

History

Language

  • English

Publisher

Routledge

Publication Year

  • 2021

License statement

This chapter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License

Institution affiliated with

  • Hamad Medical Corporation
  • College of Public Policy - HBKU

Geographic coverage

Africa

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