A Public Policy Process Analysis:
The question why majority of the Dayaks (all ethnics and religions) are poor could be a puzzling one and would raise another sets of questions, such as how could one say that they are poor or what does being poor really mean?
For the past few years, economic indicators have been telling a different story than what majority of the Dayaks truly feel. Hence, to answer the question, it is crucial that we define what poor really means and answer the question, if Dayaks are truly poor.
In welfare states, being poor is relative. It is relative in the sense that when others afford some things luxurious or the likes, but they themselves could not, then they could consider themselves as poor. On the other hand, in most developing countries being poor also means not even meeting the expense of basic necessities such as food, clothes, shelter and security.
In Sarawak, we could see informal “setinggan settlers” bristling at the back of every urban development, we are already seeing new colony of “orang ai” with their floating homes, in the Bakun hydro-electric dam, and we are most likely undisturbed by rallies for whatever reasons they are fighting for. For this purpose, I will use the latter definition of poor.
There are a lot of ways to answer why majority of the Dayaks are poor despite the economic indicators that our economy is on the rise. Economists, sociologists and even political majors have their own perspective regarding this issue.
But to answer it based on a public policy model offers a more relevant (since it is public policies that lies the alleviation of such problems) and extensive (since it uses the other three perspectives) approach to this query. I will use Rushefsky's model to identify the problems on how it is being adapted in Malaysia/Sarawak setting and therefore leads to the abnegation of the poor.
During the First Stage which is the problem identification, problems already exist. To declare that there is really a policy problem that the Government must address, it must be articulated and clearly identified.
In this stage, problems of asymmetry in information occur. In such a way that the government may recognize the problem not in the same manner as the public (or affected parties) does. This is observed among our farmers who do not own the lands that they till.
The Government may only see the problem as farmers not having lands, but they never truly see beyond- the problems of capital, maintenance, natural calamities and other factors that the farmers endure.
The Second Stage, agenda building, is also open to another set of problems such as manipulation of parties that maybe affected on its implementation. In Heywood's (2002) Politics, he described agenda-setting as a face of power.
In our state, where some of the lawmakers are business tycoons themselves or related to a certain business mogul, then the process in agenda formation will be (one way or another, since public policy process is inevitably political) tainted with attempts to protect some parties.
Due to this fact, that the agenda formulated by the government does not reflect the true predicament of the people. The manipulation or influence of other parties (specifically the private interests) to distort the true agenda has long been observed in the agenda building process in our country.
"...it is the ability to prevent decisions being made: that is, in effect, 'non-decision-making'. This involves the ability to set or control the political agenda, thereby preventing issues or proposals from being aired in the first place..."(Ibid)
Another thing is the question of what the people wants and what the government thinks it should be. There are cases, wherein the public may not have the rational decision, hence, the government intervenes and do what they think is better for them.
Hence, agenda formation may include those that the government thinks problematic but the public thinks otherwise. This dilemma is a great factor why majority of the Dayaks are poor. Not because they don't think rationally, but because the government may formulate an agenda that is intended for poverty alleviation, but the public refuse to participate otherwise.
The succeeding stages, which includes policy formulation and policy adoption is also prone to be influenced by political power. Such thing happens when power takes its form as thought control. During policy formulation, the personalities that develop the policy, plan or project to remedy a certain problem might be controlled by outside parties, in some cases, without them knowing about it.
Thought control, as Heywood puts it, is the third face of power where the outside party has the ability to influence another by shaping what he or she thinks, wants, or needs. This is done through private entities' manipulation of data and other ways to come up with a sound rationale to taint one's decisions but still allowing them to think that their decisions are in favor of the general good.
The next stage is budgeting. In this stage, more anomalies could again happen. Goods could be overpriced, grace monies were handed out and other things including subsidies and appropriate grants that were kept off the record take place.
No matter how stringent the rules may be, some people always find a way to get something to put in their own pockets. It is mainly due to this fact that Dayaks only gets substandard high-priced services. This goes down even to the smallest unit of government.
Example: In some of my research fieldwork encounter, I have come across a certain municipality, where a town has a budget of RM3 millions for the renovation of a public school comfort room. This astounding allocation for the said project is preposterous. In the same municipality however, a certain nearby town, only asked for a RM300K project to 'build' (not renovate) their public school's comfort rooms. To top this outrageous scenario off, both budgets where approved. It is therefore apparent that there are some irregularities in town A than in town B. But the municipality just tolerates it.
The implementation and evaluation stages of public policies are more problematic than the rest of the stages. The budget allocated for a certain project is not guaranteed to trickle down to those who carry out the project itself. Usually, the budget at this stage becomes so small that they could not implement the project properly.
It is because of the hierarchical nature of bureaucracies itself that this dilemma happens. At every stage, someone sets aside something for themselves, until what is left for the Dayaks are left-overs. Consider the fertilizer scam, the over-priced infrastructures and other substandard services which could not reach the remote areas where it is needed most.
Conclusion
Lastly, the cycle goes back again to the policy makers themselves, when they have to decide and reflect if a policy should be changed, amended or terminated. Once again, the faces of political power impinged this phase. Manipulation, agenda-setting and/or thought control will spoil the decisions being made.
In a nutshell, no matter how rational the public policy process seems to be, it is still political in such a way that political negotiations were made in each stage of the policy process. It is due to this fact that majority of the Dayaks are poor. So much politics gets in the way of delivering the right services to the public.
Hence, no matter what the statistics may say, case is always on the macro economic level, where the benefits of which do not trickle down to the micro economic level. Business moguls like land owners become richer, while the poor become poorer.
In my opinion, the State will never be on a better state when only the rich benefited. In this case then, that there is a need to redefine poor and adapt ‘Rawlsianism’, where economic progress is measured when the poorest of the poor were in a better state than they were before. Our current government truly needs political correctness and transformation.
Sincere opinion and thank you.
The question why majority of the Dayaks (all ethnics and religions) are poor could be a puzzling one and would raise another sets of questions, such as how could one say that they are poor or what does being poor really mean?
For the past few years, economic indicators have been telling a different story than what majority of the Dayaks truly feel. Hence, to answer the question, it is crucial that we define what poor really means and answer the question, if Dayaks are truly poor.
In welfare states, being poor is relative. It is relative in the sense that when others afford some things luxurious or the likes, but they themselves could not, then they could consider themselves as poor. On the other hand, in most developing countries being poor also means not even meeting the expense of basic necessities such as food, clothes, shelter and security.
In Sarawak, we could see informal “setinggan settlers” bristling at the back of every urban development, we are already seeing new colony of “orang ai” with their floating homes, in the Bakun hydro-electric dam, and we are most likely undisturbed by rallies for whatever reasons they are fighting for. For this purpose, I will use the latter definition of poor.
There are a lot of ways to answer why majority of the Dayaks are poor despite the economic indicators that our economy is on the rise. Economists, sociologists and even political majors have their own perspective regarding this issue.
But to answer it based on a public policy model offers a more relevant (since it is public policies that lies the alleviation of such problems) and extensive (since it uses the other three perspectives) approach to this query. I will use Rushefsky's model to identify the problems on how it is being adapted in Malaysia/Sarawak setting and therefore leads to the abnegation of the poor.
During the First Stage which is the problem identification, problems already exist. To declare that there is really a policy problem that the Government must address, it must be articulated and clearly identified.
In this stage, problems of asymmetry in information occur. In such a way that the government may recognize the problem not in the same manner as the public (or affected parties) does. This is observed among our farmers who do not own the lands that they till.
The Government may only see the problem as farmers not having lands, but they never truly see beyond- the problems of capital, maintenance, natural calamities and other factors that the farmers endure.
The Second Stage, agenda building, is also open to another set of problems such as manipulation of parties that maybe affected on its implementation. In Heywood's (2002) Politics, he described agenda-setting as a face of power.
In our state, where some of the lawmakers are business tycoons themselves or related to a certain business mogul, then the process in agenda formation will be (one way or another, since public policy process is inevitably political) tainted with attempts to protect some parties.
Due to this fact, that the agenda formulated by the government does not reflect the true predicament of the people. The manipulation or influence of other parties (specifically the private interests) to distort the true agenda has long been observed in the agenda building process in our country.
"...it is the ability to prevent decisions being made: that is, in effect, 'non-decision-making'. This involves the ability to set or control the political agenda, thereby preventing issues or proposals from being aired in the first place..."(Ibid)
Another thing is the question of what the people wants and what the government thinks it should be. There are cases, wherein the public may not have the rational decision, hence, the government intervenes and do what they think is better for them.
Hence, agenda formation may include those that the government thinks problematic but the public thinks otherwise. This dilemma is a great factor why majority of the Dayaks are poor. Not because they don't think rationally, but because the government may formulate an agenda that is intended for poverty alleviation, but the public refuse to participate otherwise.
The succeeding stages, which includes policy formulation and policy adoption is also prone to be influenced by political power. Such thing happens when power takes its form as thought control. During policy formulation, the personalities that develop the policy, plan or project to remedy a certain problem might be controlled by outside parties, in some cases, without them knowing about it.
Thought control, as Heywood puts it, is the third face of power where the outside party has the ability to influence another by shaping what he or she thinks, wants, or needs. This is done through private entities' manipulation of data and other ways to come up with a sound rationale to taint one's decisions but still allowing them to think that their decisions are in favor of the general good.
The next stage is budgeting. In this stage, more anomalies could again happen. Goods could be overpriced, grace monies were handed out and other things including subsidies and appropriate grants that were kept off the record take place.
No matter how stringent the rules may be, some people always find a way to get something to put in their own pockets. It is mainly due to this fact that Dayaks only gets substandard high-priced services. This goes down even to the smallest unit of government.
Example: In some of my research fieldwork encounter, I have come across a certain municipality, where a town has a budget of RM3 millions for the renovation of a public school comfort room. This astounding allocation for the said project is preposterous. In the same municipality however, a certain nearby town, only asked for a RM300K project to 'build' (not renovate) their public school's comfort rooms. To top this outrageous scenario off, both budgets where approved. It is therefore apparent that there are some irregularities in town A than in town B. But the municipality just tolerates it.
The implementation and evaluation stages of public policies are more problematic than the rest of the stages. The budget allocated for a certain project is not guaranteed to trickle down to those who carry out the project itself. Usually, the budget at this stage becomes so small that they could not implement the project properly.
It is because of the hierarchical nature of bureaucracies itself that this dilemma happens. At every stage, someone sets aside something for themselves, until what is left for the Dayaks are left-overs. Consider the fertilizer scam, the over-priced infrastructures and other substandard services which could not reach the remote areas where it is needed most.
Conclusion
Lastly, the cycle goes back again to the policy makers themselves, when they have to decide and reflect if a policy should be changed, amended or terminated. Once again, the faces of political power impinged this phase. Manipulation, agenda-setting and/or thought control will spoil the decisions being made.
In a nutshell, no matter how rational the public policy process seems to be, it is still political in such a way that political negotiations were made in each stage of the policy process. It is due to this fact that majority of the Dayaks are poor. So much politics gets in the way of delivering the right services to the public.
Hence, no matter what the statistics may say, case is always on the macro economic level, where the benefits of which do not trickle down to the micro economic level. Business moguls like land owners become richer, while the poor become poorer.
In my opinion, the State will never be on a better state when only the rich benefited. In this case then, that there is a need to redefine poor and adapt ‘Rawlsianism’, where economic progress is measured when the poorest of the poor were in a better state than they were before. Our current government truly needs political correctness and transformation.
Sincere opinion and thank you.
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