ABSTRACT
Researching or teaching public policy in Africa cannot rely solely on existing texts drawn from American or European experiences. This descriptive and prescriptive literature falls seriously short by not problematising what making public policy in Africa really is all about. The subject matter needs to be reconsidered. This begins at the theoretical level – the lens that researchers and teachers use to convey their empirical facts. Three theoretical issues stand out. The first is what “public” means in countries where the state has yet to emerge as a force capable of shaping society in its own image, and loyalty to communal realms remains strong. The second concerns the meaning of “institution”. The notion that it is a set of rules that shape human behaviour but are largely independent of it prioritises capacity-building through courses and seminars rather than the local experience of various stakeholders participating in the public realm, i.e. state matters. The third issue points to the inadequacy of looking at the human agency as autonomous and capable of creating linear progress, exemplified in such practices as Logical Framework Analysis and Theory of Change. Because policy is embedded in a political process, much would be gained if the analysis of public policy in Africa instead adopts reciprocal causation approaches. There has been too much emphasis on optimality and results at the expense of incorporating process and complexity.
