In one of the classes of a policy course , the course instructor brought an excellent self-baked cake for us. However, when it came to eating the cake, he gave us the knife and left an open question - Decide how you want to distribute the cake, and enjoy ! It was a serious policy question he raised in a subtle way - who gets what and how ? And when I look for answers, I struggle similarly as I struggled while deciding on how to distribute the cake, facing the internal conforntation that any policy maker across the world would face in such a scenario. The blog is my introspection on the exercise.
The holy Kuran in Suad 38:26 says, “We have made you ruler in the land; so judge between men with justice and do not follow desire”. This is a statement that is relevant to every policy maker, and guides him to rise above his own preferences and definitions of what is best, towards what is beneficial for all, or socially optimal. If we closely examine the ‘cake-dividing’ exercise that was done in the class, there are innumerous policy making and policy analysis learnings that can be taken home. I see the exercise as a typical policy decision, which involves the distribution of some resource through a policy instrument.
The simple issue here is the disbursement of a resource (could be any public good, welfare scheme or subsidy) through a policy instrument, which involves a number of actors (policymaker, beneficiaries, administrators, other interest groups), and in this setting, the interpersonal (or group) dynamics determines the discourse of events and the interaction that follows. So, if we reconstruct the exercise that took place in the class, the issue was the distribution of the cake (if it can be called so!) amongst the beneficiaries/stakeholders or actors. However, since the rules of the game (how to distribute) were not defined in advance by the policymaker, what followed was a series of discussions and negotiations about what should be the right way to distribute the cake. This is where the interaction dynamics between different actors were interesting to observe. Initial part of the discussion was primarily due to the curiosity about the cake, i.e. the issue. None of the actors was aware about the reason for which the cake was being distributed. This was a cause of concern, and probably affected the behavior of the actors initially. Had the issue been clearly defined (like cake to welcome the guest or for the best-performers in the class), probably the dynamics between the actors would have evolved differently. Since the issue was not clearly defined at the first instance, it was left to the actors to interpret the background. Hence, how the actors participate is dependent on individual specific understanding of the issue, which governs how they participate in the process. For example, if someone is unaware about the background totally, he/she will be most passive participant in the process when the question about how to distribute will be discussed. Had the policy agenda been discussed in advance, probably people would have participated differently. Few things that need to be noted here are the context of negotiations and the discussions that followed. The exact reason for distributing the cake (policy issue) was unclear initially, which is typical for this situation. Once the actors were given a lead by the policymaker (the instructor told us that it was a cake he baked for us specially) about the agenda, they started negotiating on how the cake could or should be distributed. So, it was the clear disclosure of the policy agenda (or a lack of it in this case), that triggered the negotiation and actors started negotiating so as to govern the conditions of the distribution. This leeway was available, just because the policy design was not robust enough to tackle the issue of distribution. The actual negotiation that followed closely resembles the real life situations. Different stakeholders came up with their own way of distributing the cake equally- based on the numbers, based on performance, based on efforts, based on endowments, based on power, and many more so. However, what is interesting to note at times is the universal acceptance of few and the universal ignorance of few others (e.g. students who were absent in the class). This resembles a real life situation where people generally adjust for the available, but easily try to ignore what can be ignored, so as to corner maximum benefits!
And once we understand the philosophy behind this exercise and the discussion, I think we can easily relate it to the success or failure of any policy decision and the incidents that followed. It could be the uprising in Nandigram, or the Gujjar fiasco in Rajasthan, and many more such issues. Even if none of us has ever thought these big issues, we still appreciate the philosophy behind, when we distribute the slices of pizza at home, where the kids have the first right on slices loaded with cheese and the mom generally takes the one that is left after that ! Hence, there are such considerations in every walk of life, and it won't be an exaggeration to say that all of us are policy makers in some form or the other. So, next time when you take a decision that effects people other than you, do consider the implications of your decision, as if holding a knife in hand and a cake in front !
