Politics and policy: How to promote your ideas and prevent chaos?

In terms of (post)transitional context or transition to the contemporary governance, evidence-based policymaking sometimes (or most of the time) represents a value which is misinterpreted as a burden for political elites in their mission to make the life better.

It is highlighted especially in emergency situations (as we are witnessing now) and security fragile situations, because “emergencies require emergency measures”. For sure, some way or another, production of dictated regulation without any impact assessment in emergency situations will cause damage and victims when the fire goes down (seizing the political power towards autocracy, production of non-proportional and burdensome regulation without “sun-setting” clause etc.)

So to prevent chaos based on purely political and populistic approach (although this term has its own rationale vs elitism), during the policy design based on those “on-demand”, low hanging fruit ideas, it is relevant to understand the language of politics and of those “who are seeking and consuming the power”.

The role of civil servants who are receiving direct orders from officials is to understand themselves as “gatekeepers” and professionals with a call to promote and implement principles of contemporary regulatory policy to achieve objectives which have to deliver positive outcomes and to enhance the lives of citizens and business so “no one is left behind”.

Last 10-20 years we are witnessing the trend of political discourse which is most of the time followed with keywords as digitalization, e-government, i-government, artificial intelligence. Well, the future is here, so it is obvious that we’ll digitalize everything, but the question is how? The idea of digitalization of public services is to avoid the Potemkin village effect, so we have to use the right moment to promote this “change management tool”. The time is right because the decision-makers are familiar with buzzwords, so whenever we have to deal with progressive ad hoc initiative from the political level, we should promote digitalization which will conquer the red tape and bureaucracy in long-term and to rearrange existing policy cycle with the accent on the content or the purposefulness of policy intention.

Without knowing the rules of politics as a state of play, this can be very frustrating. So, in the process of drafting policy solution in terms of tailored made approach for business and citizens, we have to communicate those principles in a way to intrigue officials. The opportunistic way to do it is to present our policy design as a benefit which will produce good publicity and ratings for politicians.

It is not the rocket science, so in parallel with broad consultations with stakeholders, regulatory impact assessment data, cost-benefit analysis or intelligence forecast, do not forget to prepare the sheet of paper with a simple projection of publicity and ratings for the decision-maker and don’t hesitate to present it on the very beginning of your presentation. Don’t worry it is ethical and it is a good way to assure that your ideas will be heard and incorporated in the final policy product.