Theorising the Intersection of Public Policy and Personal Lives through the Lens of ‘Participation’

Abstract

This article examines how ordinary people engage with public policy and argues that policy analysis should pay greater attention to the personal ways individuals interpret and respond to development interventions.

Drawing on empirical research with participants in a poverty-reduction project in Ghana, the article develops an interpretive model of participation based on three principles: subjectivity, temporality and situatedness.

Subjectivity recognises that people interpret policy through their individual life histories and experiences. Temporality emphasises that people’s priorities and interpretations change over time. Situatedness highlights that a policy or development programme is only one of several overlapping social, economic and personal contexts within which people live.

The article argues that participation should therefore not be understood simply as compliance with the expectations of policymakers or development organisations. Instead, it should be understood as an ongoing process through which individuals make sense of policy in relation to their own lives, needs and changing circumstances.