Citizens' Governability and Policy Analysts' Roles in the Policy Process: A Theoretical Examination

Abstract

Today much emphasis has been placed on “governance” and the active participation of citizens in the policy process. Such arguments are based primarily on the recognition that legislative and executive branches have not been responsive enough to meet the needs of citizens. Citizens are expected, then, to play an active role in the policy process and collaborate with other actors such as governments and corporations so that public policy could reflect the citizens’ needs.If citizens are to participate in the policy process more actively, however, they must have proper knowledge on public policy and political process; to put it another way, they are required to possess the governability so that the collaboration with other actors could succeed.This paper is intended to theoretically review the governability of citizens. Closer attention is given to what policy analysts could do for the improvement of citizens’ governability. It is contended that policy analysts play an active role in the policy process so that policies which they think desirable could be adopted. This paper proceeds as follows. First, modeling the policymaking process, how citizens could influence the process is demonstrated. Next, this paper reveals that, despite the potential influence of citizens over the policymaking process, policymakers are unlikely to make a policy the citizens want. There exist some limitations of citizens’ governability, which make it difficult for citizens to exert the influence; most policy problems are too technical and too complicated for citizens to deal with. Given the limitations of citizens’ governability, then, attention is paid to the roles of policy analysts in the policy process; how policy analysts could contribute to encouraging meaningful citizen participation and improving the policy process is examined. This paper is concluded by discussing the collaboration among policymakers, citizens and policy analysts in terms of knowledge utilization. The reform of the governance structure requires us to establish a policymaking system which enables policy analysts as well as citizens to actively participate in the policy process.