Abstract

Policy analysis needs to go beyond the conventional ‘problem solving’ approach to interrogating ‘problem representations’ within policy documents. Numerous studies on social protection in Ethiopia, and in sub-Saharan Africa at large have been confined to studying the impact of policy interventions. Studies that aimed to scrutinize policy documents for their ‘problematization’ of issues and ‘problem representations’ in the Foucauldian sense are in dearth. This study used document analysis as a method and Bacchi’s (2009a Bacchi, C. , 2009a, Analysing Policy: What is the Problem Represented to be?, Frenchs Forest , NSW : Pearson Education. [Google Scholar]) ‘What is the Problem Represented to be’ (WPR) model as its analytic frame to interrogate the ‘problem representations’ of the Developmental Social Welfare Policy (DSWP) and the present Social Protection Policy of Ethiopia. The findings suggest that though there is improvement from the earlier to the current policy, ‘problem representations’ of both were limited in terms of what they could deliver, for they were framed by targeting theory, having the ‘resource scarcity’ excuse. This was mainly reflected in the policy regimes’ ‘problematization’ of issues and ‘subjectification’ of beneficiaries.

摘要

策略分析需要超越常规的“问题解决”方法，以质询策略文档中的“问题表示”。关于埃塞俄比亚和整个撒哈拉以南非洲地区社会保护的大量研究仅限于研究政策干预的影响。旨在审查政策文件中有关问题的“问题化”和“问题表现”的研究缺乏研究。本研究使用文档分析作为一种方法，而Bacchi（2009a Bacchi，C. ，2009a，分析政策：代表的问题是什么？，Frenchs Forest， 新南威尔士州 ：培生教育。 [Google学者]）“代表什么是问题”（WPR）模型作为其分析框架，以询问发展性社会福利政策（DSWP）和当前埃塞俄比亚的“问题代表”。研究结果表明，尽管从较早的政策到当前的政策都有改进，但两者的“问题表示”在它们可以提供的内容方面受到限制，因为它们是通过针对性理论加以界定的，具有“资源稀缺”的借口。这主要体现在政策制度对问题的“问题化”和受益人的“主体化”上。