From Perichoretic Relationships to Effective Public Policies for Agricultural and Rural Development in Developing Countries ()
1. Introduction
Relationships between stakeholders have always played a significant role in the development of societies, whose functioning is largely determined by them [1]. Their analysis in the field of agricultural and rural development is intrinsically linked to that of the issues these stakeholders bring to the process of developing public policies governing this area.
Indeed, the lack of “explicit and coordinated” public policies, including those agreed upon upstream, in the agricultural and rural sectors creates a context of fragility and confusion to the detriment of rural areas, which are supposed to effectively regulate this sector [2]. Given the weak territorial development generated by weak public policies relating to agricultural and rural development, it is necessary to question the relationships between stakeholders to explore the various issues that mobilize them, in order to uncover the importance of multi-stakeholder dialogue for the effectiveness of these public policies.
Simmel considers relationships between stakeholders to be relationships of interdependence, meaning that in a given system, each stakeholder has an effect on the others [3]. As a result, the issue of multi-stakeholder dialogue constitutes both a political challenge and an agricultural and rural development challenge, capable of breaking the unsustainable trends of a sustainable development model [4]. In light of this, public decision-making is called upon to express and embody coherent choices from a particularly rural perspective. Such a decision is only possible if public policy, as an “action program” [5] and social construct, proves effective and endowed with a perichoretic character, that is, an inherent shared vision, interactivity, and realism, thanks to the pooling of different stakeholders in its development and implementation. For, as the work of Herbert Simon demonstrates, public services alone are cognitively limited, by many constraints, in considering all possible alternatives for truly effective public action.
This article aims overall to demonstrate that “satisfactory compromise” [6] relationships, thus perichoretic, between public services and other stakeholders, are capable of increasing the effectiveness of public agricultural and rural development policies. Using the strategic approach, the article describes the issues and the map of partners whose negotiated strategies promote the said effectiveness of public policies and ultimately form the concrete, stable and harmonious action system that constitutes effective policies.
What is the importance of multi-stakeholder dialogue in terms of public policy approaches and perspectives? How can agricultural and rural development be considered a political and relational issue? Why is understanding the map of partners in an agricultural and rural context necessary? How can the perichoretic relational approach increase the effectiveness of public policies? These are the questions that form the backdrop to this article.
2. Multi-Actor Dialogue at the Heart of Public Policy Approaches and Perspectives
By its origins, public policy analysis is torn between two major approaches emerging from two different perspectives, one political science and the other sociological [7]. The first focuses on the preeminent role of the state, governments, and elites in organizing and managing society. This approach is influenced by law and political institutions and favors a rational and hierarchical vision of public policy. Generally referred to as top-down, this approach analyzes central decisions and their effects. It perceives public policy as a dependent variable, namely as the product of political institutions, administrative practices, legal traditions, and political-administrative cultures.
Under a sociological umbrella, the second approach is fueled by “organizational sociologists who seek to understand the gaps between public programs and their implementation” [8]. Here, an effort is made to demonstrate the inconsistency and lack of rationality of decision-makers. The focus is more on the actors in the situation, their interactions, and coordination mechanisms. This makes it an incremental approach. Lascoumes and Le Galès discuss the sociology of collective action within organizations and public or private networks and specify that this approach favors bottom-up reasoning, starting from the modes of exchange and aggregation between individual and collective actors. It views public policy as an independent variable that generates different types of behavior and political activities, regardless of the context in which it is deployed.
The perspective adopted by top-downers is to consider the option of decision-makers making clear and rational choices. For bottom-upers, it is not a question of starting with a decision, but of identifying the network of actors involved in the provision of services and activities related to a specific problem. It is by identifying the actors that it becomes possible to focus on “the objectives they pursue, their strategies, their activities, and the contacts they maintain with other actors” [9], or even many others in the sector under consideration.
Goggin et al. [10] criticize both for the failure of some to ignore the part of reality explained by others. Indeed, given the interference in decision-making, “looking at a single decision can then prove misleading,” they believe. On the one hand, the initial decision becomes likely to be ambiguous when diverse values and interests are combined. On the other hand, serious symmetrical difficulties are observed when we limit ourselves to prioritizing operational relationships, at the risk of believing that politics and the State have no real effects on the conduct of agents or operational networks. This is a kind of overestimation of the room for maneuver available to actors who are not, however, free from all constraints because they are subject to organizational and political controls [11].
Analyzing the two perspectives as presented above, we are faced with a structuring tension for research, which does not fail to impact the choice of issues. Incidentally, Lascoumes and Le Galès believe that, to avoid decisive ruptures, public action must primarily contribute to conflict resolution and adjustments between different groups and interests, but also to the distribution of resources and the creation or compensation of inequalities. Proclaiming that “politics is not an isolate,” they, quoting B. Jobert, point out that “political regulation is therefore subject to a permanent effect, that of reconciling the construction of a legitimate political order and contributing to that of a social order... necessarily complex and contradictory” [12].
The blatant opposition between top-down and bottom-up, both evaluative (what should be observed), explanatory (why things happen as they do) and normative (what should be done) has given rise to other theoretical developments considered more or less conciliatory or mixed such as Etzioni’s mixed scanning [7], the double spiral theory initiated by Buttoud and Samyn [5]. The latter is the one from which this study was inspired to put forward proposals likely to promote the anticipation of good public actions in the field of agricultural and rural development.
The mixed model, which combines the two aforementioned approaches, assumes that stakeholders are consulted at every stage of the decision-making process, but that the final decision rests solely with the administration, which is subsequently responsible for enforcing the measures taken. This model is essentially communicative and assumes that public policy is gradually constructed, layer by layer, as amendments are proposed and validated [6]. It promotes an understanding of stakeholders’ strategies and the establishment of a true negotiation game where “the public policy decision is the product of satisfactory compromises” [6]. Although the “plasticity of interpretations of social issues and the relationship with institutions” is taken into account, the defined cognitive and normative frameworks ultimately guide the “attributable meanings and possible actions” [6].
However, it is in the condition of negotiated compromises that multi-actor dialogue is considered as a true sum of adaptations that are built little by little, likely to feed and determine the set of behaviors of “muddling-through” or “getting by” (trial and error) of the decision-maker [7]. And Lindblom [5] clarifies by saying that the main interest of the societal debate is fundamentally to apply public policy decisions in a progressive and adaptive manner as resulting from a series of consensual choices. From there, it is appropriate to explain in the following point how the field of agricultural and rural development, as a territorialized domain, constitutes a politically consensual issue.
3. Agricultural and Rural Development as a Political and Relational Issue
To speak of agricultural and rural development is to address the issue of rural areas in a more or less comprehensive manner. Although agricultural activity remains important for rural areas, it is not, however, “sufficient to speak of rural development” and to ensure the progress of these territories alone [5]. According to Jean Morize [8], “rural development consists of improving the entire environment of the farmer, considered as the main beneficiary. It concerns roads, villages, health, education and all economic and social services capable of improving not only the productive function, but also social well-being.” It emerges from this fact that agricultural development is important for economic growth as a whole and poverty reduction, and rural infrastructure is crucial for the achievement or acceleration of rural development [9]. We cannot speak of one without speaking of the other. In this regard, Jazra-Bandarra believes that the specificity of rural development arises first and foremost in relation to agriculture, and that it is struggling to emerge from under its wings.
Certainly, the current challenges of agricultural development include the dual objectives of reducing poverty and hunger. However, some studies show that two other crucial elements must be added to this list of challenges. The first element is a consequence of higher oil prices and increased food demand, which have led to recent volatility in staple food markets, with the risk of also leading to higher real food prices in the medium term, especially in countries experiencing rapid economic growth. The second is making agriculture environmentally sustainable in the long term—how to produce without depleting aquifers, eroding and degrading soils, converting valuable natural habitats into cultivated fields, or polluting soils and water (“climate-smart agriculture”) [10].
This requires that public policy choices be coherent and inclusive. In other words, agricultural policy must address a broader set of issues than in the past and address formidable challenges.
Indeed, the issue of agricultural and rural development calls for considerations of agricultural multifunctionality and multi-stakeholders. These concepts, as described by Volet [11], constitute “the essential interface strengthening the effectiveness of public action, regardless of the analysis used.” It is in this regard that Steve Wiggins et al. [12] consider public agricultural development policy to be a “consensual domain,” as it is structured around three main orientations: 1) the rural investment climate or a favorable context: peace and public order, macroeconomic stability, and basic institutions; 2) the provision of public goods in rural areas: roads, electricity, other physical infrastructure, education, health, running water, sanitation, agricultural research and advisory services; and finally, 3) food security and nutrition. All these factors make agricultural and rural development a politically complex and, above all, relational issue, for which decisions are often difficult to make, because “political power must arbitrate between dimensions and interests, often conflicting ones” [11].
This political complexity and relational nature are linked to three major facts. First, the agricultural and rural sector cuts across several other sectors (environment, energy, transportation, health, etc.), each with its own history, professionals, strategies, and so on. Hence, we already note the potential for a strong clash of power and inertia when it comes, for example, to integrating environmental dimensions. Second, the combination of scientific, economic, social, and political issues presides over different logics that are not always easily reconciled. Finally, as an environmental component, the agricultural sector is an area where knowledge is sometimes controversial, both regarding the magnitude of the problem and its medium- and long-term impacts. In addition to the often difficult decisions to make, this triple complexity reveals that the content of related public action programs is also often poorly finalized in terms of the objectives to be achieved.
Considered as an organization, the agricultural and rural sector evokes the idea of a whole set of complicated but perfectly coordinated mechanisms. It is the realm of the sum total of strategies, power relationships, influences, bargaining, and divergent interests that call for the consensual development of the public policies intended to govern it. This is an issue that requires the consideration of all stakeholders.
4. The Need to Understand the Partner Map in a Strategic Approach
The foundation of strategic analysis, dear to Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg, and even the likely reason for its success, is to rethink the organization as a field politically structured by power relations between its various constituent actors. The agricultural and rural sector itself constitutes an entire organization with its own unique challenges and relational structure.
Going beyond the technical perspective, strategic analysis highlights the nature of the power relations that structure the organization. The behavior of actors is now analyzed in the form of personal strategies aimed at securing a position of power or, conversely, protecting themselves from the power of other actors. Much research has already been done to demonstrate that “society does not completely constrain the individual.” This has led to another debate, one pitting the proponents of the holistic paradigm against the individualistic paradigm. Strategic analysis, which is relatively corrective to either paradigm, also criticizes one for its overly normative nature and its claim to anticipate the future of humanity, and the other for its claim to portray the individual as a “free atom.”
Thus, this paradigm, which better plays the double spiral, highlights a dynamic relationship between the actor and the system and is structured around two distinct orientations. The first, centered essentially on the actor, examines power relations within an organization. The second starts with the system and examines the constraints that weigh on the actor. Bachelet considers this way of seeing things to be the opposite of classical organizational theory. He thus clarifies the two postulates of the analysis by stating, on the one hand, that the organization is a social construct (the result of the actions of individuals) and, on the other, that individuals use the space of play (organization) between the constraints; advocating that the zone of uncertainty is the key point of the theory.
Strategic analysis therefore makes it possible to account for the functioning of the agricultural and rural sector, the way in which actors interact in relation to the sector, with no other ambition than to explain and understand. This sector is a social construct, that is, it is the contingent product of power relations between actors constrained by situations of interdependence. In other words, the actual functioning of the said sector is the result of the multiple strategic games that are woven between all the actors.
Thus, De Maillard and Kübler put forward four main issues that circumscribe this functioning: causality, the importance of the problems, the actors involved, and the solutions. Indeed, causality is a crucial issue that seeks to determine the direction and distribution of responsibilities between actors in the development of public policies for agricultural and rural development. The definition of problems separates the opinions of those who consider, for example, that the poor development of rural areas is due to a lack of local dynamism from those who believe it is caused by weak agricultural policies. Which populations are affected by the problem? What are the dominant social perceptions of the group targeted by rural development? These are, for example, some important questions to consider regarding the stakeholder stakes. Finally, it is important to question the consideration of potentially mobilizable solutions from three perspectives: the actual availability of solutions, their social acceptability, and their affordability or efficiency.
All these issues, taken together, can position stakeholders in their strategies and relationships to be maintained and give rise to the partner map or stakeholder map. Applying the model theorized by Jean-Christophe Fauvet (cited by idem) following the strategic analysis by Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg, this positioning is divided into two trends, schematically presented as follows:
Legend: COLO (Local communities), EAB (Small-scale timber operators), SOCIV (Civil society), AP/TS (Tshopo Provincial Assembly), CPEDDSA (Provincial Coordination for the Environment, Sustainable Development, and Food Security), MENV (Ministry of the environment) et MPENV (Provincial Ministry of the environment).
Figure 1. Map of partners or issues1.
Figure 1 clearly shows, along the y-axis, the actors who use their resources and areas of uncertainty to support the development of public agricultural and rural development policies. Along the x-axis, it presents those who use their resources to counter this issue. However, only public services (the State and its components) can generally be found among the “committed” or even “consultative” actors. Researchers are naturally “hesitant” or “divergent.” Civil society often positions itself as “opponents,” while members of rural areas always consider themselves “torn.” However, farmers or peasants are “diehards,” because they are forced to work the land.
A careful examination of this map reveals that other actors, other than public services, are largely those who can thwart public agricultural and rural development policies with which they do not identify. Hence, the need to fully understand these issues and promote multi-stakeholder dialogue to make these public policies effective, through the perichoretic approach or relationships.
5. Perichoretic Relationships for Effective Public Agricultural and Rural Development Policies
Compensating for the weak public policies governing the agricultural and rural sectors requires the implementation of an approach capable of correcting the shortcomings of the state-centric approach to public policies, used in most of the cases considered.
This study advocates the “Perichoretic Interactive System” (PIS) approach as the one indicated both for the development of these policies and their appropriation, as well as for their effective implementation. It was born from the combination of the notion of perichoretics and that of interactivity as seen through the eyes of Licklider, who considers it a means of increasing the possibilities of connecting with others, interactivity becoming the pillar “of a kind of fundamental theory of communication” [7]. The perichoretic character is inspired by the theory of representation, according to St. Augustine, “a theory which is the basis of a ‘similitudo’ between the true divine Trinity and the Trinity present in the soul” [13]. Historically, perichoresis is a concept that was not originally applied to the Trinity, but was used in Christology to attempt to explain the union of the two natures of Christ (divine and human), without mixture or confusion, without separation or change, within a single person (hypostatic union). This usage dates back to the Fathers of the Church and is first found in a letter from Gregory of Nazianzus in the 4th century AD [14]. But the shift from this Christological principle to the Trinity truly began with John Damascene in the 7th century, in his work Expositio de fide orthodoxa [15].
Indeed, perichoretic relationships are interactive relationships, driven by the interplay of negotiated and satisfactory compromises, which help to define, through constructed policies, the circumincession of public policy, governance, and public action. Although not everything is always “negotiable,” at least the interactions between the power struggles of actors and those of institutions are still likely to produce “a grammar of possibilities that decisively guides public action” [15].
Thus, the SIP is considered the approach that can, based on the various stakeholders interacting in the agricultural and rural sector, identify issues, monitor the evolution of activities, and provide tools for investigating specific phenomena. This is done in order to anticipate public policies and their effective implementation, thanks to the double spiral. To this end, it is based on three main principles, namely:
Establish a coherent public policy based on the concrete realities of the grassroots and political issues at the national, regional and international levels (coherent and realistic action program);
Promote a concerted and participatory approach in the process of developing this policy (respect for the principles of good governance: openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness, subsidiarity and proportionality, coherence) [7];
Clearly define the appropriate modalities for the effective implementation of this policy, virtually free from any possible interference of a state nature (land - forest - agricultural conflict, whether apparent or not), political-administrative or normative nature (conflict of jurisdiction, normative, etc.) (effective application of the action program).
Only under these conditions can relationships be considered perichoretic, and public policies related to agriculture and rural development can be considered effective, coherent, and conducive to sustainable development in rural areas.
To operationalize the SIP approach, three main phases must be considered.
The first phase involves mapping direct and indirect stakeholders. The location, scale, and nature of activities will determine who perceives themselves as stakeholders. Stakeholders will expect to be recognized as such if the impact caused by agriculture and rural development on them is, for better or worse, direct or immediate. Mapping stakeholders is a useful technique at this stage. It is a way to outline the diversity of relationships between stakeholders and their relative proximity or strength.
The second phase involves understanding the reasons for stakeholder involvement and their ownership of the public policies to be developed. All of this is likely to evolve over time. It is important to clearly determine the place of each involvement in the overall scheme of things. Will the role of stakeholders be consultative or participatory? At this stage, five types of objectives can be identified: informing and raising awareness 1), gathering information 2), discussing 3), engaging 4), and building partnerships 5). Indeed, this is the stage where the engagement objectives are determined. What do stakeholders want to gain from the engagement and what do they need in this regard? The engagement plan should reflect the stakeholders’ capacity to engage on specific issues. It is important to ensure that vulnerable groups can speak freely and without fear of reprisal, and to be sensitive to gender issues.
Involvement can be affective or normative. It is affective if it is based on emotion or feeling (identification, belonging) and normative when it is linked to social control, which is a matter of values and duty (internalization of values). To better engage stakeholders through the SIP approach, a few guidelines are important to understand. These guidelines are operational tools because they reflect the roles played by stakeholders who must participate interactively in the implementation of effective public policies in the agricultural and rural sectors. They are defined by their rights and duties, their respective responsibilities, the benefits derived from these policies, and the relationships that mobilize them.
Furthermore, appropriation is done in three modes: appropriation of tools (project, objectives, related materials, laws in force, current events, contexts, etc.), appropriation of procedures (respect for procedures which presupposes knowledge of the causes and principles that underlie the rules as well as all the elements that allow understanding the links between the different procedures: timetable, program, etc.) and appropriation of activities (development of skills: each party gets to work on what really commits them). It is this last mode of appropriation that pushes stakeholders to their effective involvement in the different activities or events of the public policy development process, schematized as follows:
Figure 2. Development of public policy for agricultural and rural development following a strategic approach.
As Figure 2 demonstrates, it can be seen that there is first a given situation presenting various challenges, which manage to attract the attention of stakeholders, who in turn manage to mobilize their resources and areas of uncertainty to develop strategies that benefit them. Thus, all these strategies together form what is called, in the language of the strategic approach, a “concrete action system,” considered, moreover, as the organization (formal or informal) in which these stakeholders find themselves.
The final phase requires the monitoring and evaluation of all engagement results with regard to the various objectives that the stakeholders have set for themselves. It is not enough to develop public policies; their effective implementation must also be monitored and evaluated in order to readjust their strategies.
Indeed, these three phases summarize the protocol to be followed in the SIP approach, which is likely to make relationships between stakeholders perichoretic and, by extension, effective public policies to be developed. They are consubstantial in nature: public policy as an action program, good governance as principles to be followed, and public action as a concrete solution to agricultural and rural issues. It is under these conditions that we can successfully build a concrete system of action favorable to the “conservative coalition” model [16], which guarantees a certain stability and the relational networks woven between actors are conservative, meaning that the strong and the weak come together according to different modalities.
It goes without saying that sustainable agricultural and rural development and the effectiveness of related public policies depend on the quality of relationships between the various stakeholders. Given that their roles are unequal and their interests often diverge, these relationships can be characterized by a lack of mutual trust, which compromises the possibilities of constructive partnerships to achieve the desired objective.
To manage pluralism and prepare for effective collaboration, the main imperative is to understand the nature of relationships between stakeholders, which are always characterized by six facets, including: service; legal/contractual; market (determined by the supply and demand of goods and services); information exchange; interpersonal; and power.
6. Conclusions
The nature of relationships between stakeholders leads to collaborative approaches considered as the pooling of concrete points of view or interests to solve a series of problems that no single stakeholder could resolve alone. It also involves making joint decisions to solve problems, within the framework of an approach where power is shared and stakeholders are collectively responsible for their actions and the subsequent consequences thereof.
It follows from this logic that the ineffectiveness or effectiveness of public agricultural and rural development policies depends on the mechanisms used to develop and implement them. The more multi-stakeholder dialogue is promoted, the more effective these policies will be. However, this dialogue should not be formalistic or emotional, but rather normative, implying the internalization of values and a sense of responsibility and duty. In the latter, actors are seen as potential participants rather than potential competitors. While their collaboration is based on joint learning and inquiry procedures, similar to the double spiral, this collaboration resembles a principled negotiation, in that it is more focused on interests than on positions.
This type of collaboration and involvement is the expression of perichoretic relationships, endowed with shared power, a concerted vision, and realism, as well as respect for each other’s rights and obligations. Participants are not asked to set aside their personal interests; on the contrary, they are even expected to clearly express their respective interests and work vigorously to satisfy them. The key is that their efforts should not be directed towards an unacknowledged and contested general goal, but that the objectives should be determined jointly. This therefore creates a context that encourages the analysis of divergences and not hinders it, thus making public policies in the agricultural and rural sector effective.
NOTES
1Legeng: MEDD (Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development), MPEDD (Provincial Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development), COLO (Local community), CPEDD (Provincial Coordination of the Environment and Sustainable Development), AP/TS (Provincial Assembly of Tshopo), SOCIV (Société Civile), EAB (Exploitant Artisal de bois).