Why Is Law Central to Public Policy Process in Global South?

Abstract

This paper is arguing the case of centrality of law in policy processes in the Global South. In the Global North, Public Policy as a discipline originated and flourished, relying upon political competition (through democracy) and market forces (through capitalism) to bring order to the public sphere. When these arrangements normalise the infringements on people’s lives, citizens are provided with justiciable Constitutional framework. Though, both law and policy have the mandate of the Constitution, neither of them is monolithic. Distinct schools within the disciplines of law and policy have different approaches when they take the Constitutional mandate to deal with public problems. Yet, their approaches as well as reasoning for decision-making, when public problems are addressed, are strikingly different. While these generic principles are true both in the Global North and Global South, when the interface of law and policy are examined, specific contextual concerns make law central in the Global South. These are: postcolonial state-formation (which places the Constitution-making as the epochal moment of social contract); imperfect institutions (which leads citizens to look up to court for finality in service delivery); flawed political competition yielding democratic process less effective to respond to public problems; power distance between executive and citizens (requiring accountability tools to have legal backing). Having recognised these reasons that make law inseparable from policy, we undertake an institutional mapping where the synergy between these two domains could be strengthened.