Neopatrimonialism, according to the distinguished development scholar, Thandika Mkandawire (2015:... more Neopatrimonialism, according to the distinguished development scholar, Thandika Mkandawire (2015: 563–612], provides the ‘common denominator’ for a host of practices of politics in Africa; viz. patronage, corruption, cronyism, and predation. So deeply embedded is this view among mainstream thinkers, that ‘underneath every policy lurks neopatrimonialism’, that the idea has come to be imbued with the ‘air of irrefutable common sense’. This paper deconstructs common sense refracted through the lens of present-day statecraft and the deceptive and subversive nature of contemporary neoliberal governance. It cautiously outlines the contours of a new common sense, placing emphasis on theorisation, a situated politics, institutional recalibration, fundamental changes in social relations, and the adoption of ‘bad’ and unorthodox development policies.
The content, curriculum and complexion of mainstream public policy teaching and learning is predo... more The content, curriculum and complexion of mainstream public policy teaching and learning is predominantly white, masculine, hetero-normative, and universally applicable. All non-Western knowledge is denigrated as backward and pre-/un-scientific. When Africa appears in public administration and policy curriculums and courses, it is 'little more than a version of the continent offered by apartheid's Bantu education system' of darkness and negatives and with 'no intelligentsia worth reading'. But the global protests against systematic racism, poverty, institutional exclusion, and structural violence-alongside the belated and grudging recognition by establishment academe of 'many stories mattering' (versus the 'white gaze') is challenging the hegemony of white history, white knowledge, and northern prescriptions and actions. Disassembling and reassembling public policy teaching and learning, rooted in the concrete and lived realities of developing southern societies, is however no easy undertaking as we are without pictures and without tools. But messy realities, heterodox rescue packages, the global assertion of personhood-the demand of black people from around the world to be present-and the pandemic furnishes clues for a reorientation and reconfiguration of the subject and discipline of public policy to serve the majority excluded from grand white papers, grey strategy documents, deadening guidelines, and dusty hetero-normative dusty textbooks; and to be an actor in the play of history both past and present. Focussing on the social construction and reproduction of knowledge-public administration public policy knowledge-the paper argues for cultivating and nurturing a pluriverse of relational ontologies and histories; a multiplicity of worldviews; and the urgent elevation and prioritization of the human and epistemic rights of the weakest. In contrast to the dominant decontextualised, western pedagogy of public policy, a situated and action-based pedagogy for public policy is proposed comprising deliberative dialogue, community engagement and democratic education to deliver the classroom and school to society, and to put society and the street (back) into our lecture halls, curriculums, teaching and research.
Neopatrimonialism, according to the distinguished development scholar, Thandika Mkandawire (2015:... more Neopatrimonialism, according to the distinguished development scholar, Thandika Mkandawire (2015: 563–612], provides the ‘common denominator’ for a host of practices of politics in Africa; viz. patronage, corruption, cronyism, and predation. So deeply embedded is this view among mainstream thinkers, that ‘underneath every policy lurks neopatrimonialism’, that the idea has come to be imbued with the ‘air of irrefutable common sense’. This paper deconstructs common sense refracted through the lens of present-day statecraft and the deceptive and subversive nature of contemporary neoliberal governance. It cautiously outlines the contours of a new common sense, placing emphasis on theorisation, a situated politics, institutional recalibration, fundamental changes in social relations, and the adoption of ‘bad’ and unorthodox development policies.
The content, curriculum and complexion of mainstream public policy teaching and learning is predo... more The content, curriculum and complexion of mainstream public policy teaching and learning is predominantly white, masculine, hetero-normative, and universally applicable. All non-Western knowledge is denigrated as backward and pre-/un-scientific. When Africa appears in public administration and policy curriculums and courses, it is 'little more than a version of the continent offered by apartheid's Bantu education system' of darkness and negatives and with 'no intelligentsia worth reading'. But the global protests against systematic racism, poverty, institutional exclusion, and structural violence-alongside the belated and grudging recognition by establishment academe of 'many stories mattering' (versus the 'white gaze') is challenging the hegemony of white history, white knowledge, and northern prescriptions and actions. Disassembling and reassembling public policy teaching and learning, rooted in the concrete and lived realities of developing southern societies, is however no easy undertaking as we are without pictures and without tools. But messy realities, heterodox rescue packages, the global assertion of personhood-the demand of black people from around the world to be present-and the pandemic furnishes clues for a reorientation and reconfiguration of the subject and discipline of public policy to serve the majority excluded from grand white papers, grey strategy documents, deadening guidelines, and dusty hetero-normative dusty textbooks; and to be an actor in the play of history both past and present. Focussing on the social construction and reproduction of knowledge-public administration public policy knowledge-the paper argues for cultivating and nurturing a pluriverse of relational ontologies and histories; a multiplicity of worldviews; and the urgent elevation and prioritization of the human and epistemic rights of the weakest. In contrast to the dominant decontextualised, western pedagogy of public policy, a situated and action-based pedagogy for public policy is proposed comprising deliberative dialogue, community engagement and democratic education to deliver the classroom and school to society, and to put society and the street (back) into our lecture halls, curriculums, teaching and research.
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Papers by Firoz Khan
emphasis on theorisation, a situated politics, institutional recalibration, fundamental changes in social relations, and the adoption of ‘bad’ and unorthodox development policies.
Drafts by Firoz Khan
emphasis on theorisation, a situated politics, institutional recalibration, fundamental changes in social relations, and the adoption of ‘bad’ and unorthodox development policies.