A Framework for Operationalizing the Effect of National Culture on Participatory Policy Analysis

Abstract

Participatory policy analysis (PPA) aims to involve actors who affect, or are affected by, a decision in the policy-making process. Although the concept of public participation is attractive and promising, the possibility and quality of its application is sensitive to context, notably to cultural factors. Research on how to operationalize and manage this sensitivity while designing and implementing PPA is scant. This article aims to fill this gap by providing an analytic framework for assessing culturally sensitive factors affecting participation (FAPs) using cross-cultural theories. The framework is tested in secondary case studies in four countries with different cultural backgrounds. The results show good correspondence between the quantitative indicators in the framework and the empirical observations in the case studies. This suggests that the framework provides a valuable ex ante diagnostic tool for researchers and practitioners who wish to tailor a participatory approach to a cultural context.

The influence of national culture on organizational culture of multinational companies

“…The concept of national culture has been acknowledged as the key to cross-cultural study and practice-which includes: cross-cultural psychology (Triandis, 1994(Triandis, , 1995, international business (Andersson, Johansson, & Lööf, 2012;Baskerville, 2003;Shamkarmahesh, Ford, & LaTour, 2003); international and cross-cultural relations (Minkov & Hofstede, 2011;Taras, Steel, & Kirkman, 2012;Usunier, Furrer, & Furrer-Perrinjaquet, 2011); organizational management (Lewis, 2006); differences in public sector (Maleki & Bots, 2013;Rao & Walton, 2002) as well as on governance systems which tend to impact inhabitants of a country (Helgesen & Kim, 2002;Inglehart, 1997;Minkov, 2009). Understanding the national culture of one's country has innumerable benefits to countries organizations' as well as individuals.…”

The Pluralism of the Cultural Milieu

“…They include beliefs concerning both the legitimacy of the policy itself and the government that imposes or enforces the policy" (p. 7). The impact of cultural dimensions on policy design and response has also been noted by some policy analysts (Maleki and Bots 2013), who in a cross-cultural perspective have emphasised the benefit of including specific components of national cultures in the development of participatory public policy (Box 6.2).…”

The Effects of Public Participation on Multi-Level Water Governance, Lessons from Uganda

“…exchange of and development of collective knowledge); and mapping administrative levels of actors to participation structures (e.g. Maleki & Bots, 2013;Renn, Berghöfer, Wittmer, & Rauschmayer, 2010). Those focusing on a range of scales, levels and dynamics concurrently, based on a number of flow types in the water governance system, such as finances, power, water, information/knowledge and people are rarer (e.g.…”