Daily Times

Is there such a thing as the ‘Public Interest’? To understand we have to investigate the relationship between public interest and concepts of official behaviour and discuss the use and abuse of the public-interest concept by political scientists, politicians, administrators, judges and private-interest groups.

The analysis may challenge existing public-interest theories. Critical analysis is likely to raise fundamental questions about the complex inter relationship of political theory, political behaviour and scientific inquiry: The important question is how do you determine the people’s will and the public interest?

Political behaviour refers to a contemporary interdisciplinary movement among social scientists. The atom of organisational behaviour remains the individual, we can understand how and why complex aggregations of persons (which we term ‘groups’ or ‘organisations’) act only by examining the behaviour of the individual actors, who are human beings.

The decision of the individual, in turn, has meaning only as part of a process, shaped by the antecedent decisions of other people and entering as a factor in the subsequent decisions of still others. When we take into consideration of such social dimensions, all decision making by governmental officials is a factor in group (or institutional) decision-making. From this point of view, the focus for decision making analysis should be on the interaction of individuals who are confronted with the obligation of making choices as part of their official responsibility. To a researcher, what methodology and strategy open to seeking a better understanding of the theory of public interest is an important basic question.

There are theorists who identify public interest with particular institutional arrangements for the making of decisions (such as bureaucracy). The term ‘national interest’ has been used primarily in discussing foreign affairs’ and ‘the public interest’ for use primarily in discussing domestic affairs. But the two concepts have merged, somehow.

Analysis of the theory of public interest has revealed a contrariety of assumptions, conclusions, and concepts, in the context of American political thought. Certain continuities are discovered that can be traced to all factors in the decision-making schema, focus on all state institutions, groups, officers and concepts etc, ie 1) Constituency; 2) Congress; 3) The Presidency; 4) The Public Interest; and 5) The Judiciary. The public interest could be viewed as ‘a projected statement of Administrative Ethics’.

Focus on human resource management can help improve the effectiveness of personal and financial disciplines

This analysis had postulated three types of official discretion, including technical discretion to carry out norms which administrators and judges do not make, but which are supplied to them in the form of constitutional provisions, statutes, and executive orders, made, of course, by the representatives of the people, who implement the public will. An important task was to state the major patterns characterising ‘Rationalist’, ‘Idealist’, and ‘Realist’ concepts of the public interest, and to consider the parallel findings of other contemporary critics of public-interest theory.

The Rationalists are Propublic, Pro-party, and anti-interest groups. They postulate a common good finding expression in popular will. The common obligation of all public officials is faithfully to execute the popular will.

To this extent, there is consensus among Rationalists. However, party Rationalists tend to be Anglophiles with regard to the political-party system, the relationship between legislators and political parties, and the relationship between the executive and the legislative departments.

The Party Rationalists urge, therefore, that Congress ought to be the disciplined members of a majority or minority party, with the two parties dividing over issues of public policy. Popular Rationalists think that Congress-men are to carry out the wishes of their constituents. However, all Rationalists agree that the proper function of the bureaucracy is to carry out the policy norms supplied by hierarchical superiors (Congress and the President).

The Idealists are Propublic, antiparty, and anti-interest group. Idealists believe that the public interest reposes not in the positive law made by men, but in the higher law, in natural Law. They describe the public interest as a ‘thing of substance’ independent of the decisional process and absolute in its terms.

The public interest becomes whatever the still small voice of conscience reveals to each official.

According to Idealist thought, Congressmen are responsible neither to political parties nor to their constituencies; they have a higher obligation, to God and to their own Consciences.

Does it not sound dangerous, outright? The themes which permeate idealist public-interest theory are the invocation of natural-law ideals; hostility to the instrumentalities of democratic politics, and elitist notions of superior intelligence and wisdom. It would be a mischief in the name of public interest.

It would be abetment of public officials, from top to bottom, to become aggressive evangelists who will strive mightily-and ruthlessly. This is basically antithetical to democratic theories of governance.

The Realists are pro-interest groups. They define ‘party’ and ‘public’ in such a way that these terms lose the identity that we have ascribed to them in discussing Rationalist and Idealist thought, to say nothing of their usual, everyday meaning in American Speech. Political parties become merely a special kind of interest group, and ‘public’ becomes segmented as ‘publics’, in which form it, too merges in the concept of ‘interest group’. The Realists, in other words, do not oppose the public and political parties; they devour them.

There are three major strands of Realist theory, and each of these recurs through all five factors of decision-making schema. Bentlian Realism draws predominantly upon the outmoded views. The source of inspiration for psychological realism is self-evident; and law and economics are the well springs for Due-Process-Equilibrium Realism. If all these measures have to yield positive results for the political system the focus has to be on the structure and functional aspects of decision-making processes that the Due-Process-Equilibrium Realists have paid attention to. Decisions that are the product of a process of full consideration are most likely to be decisions in the public interest.

Although some critics have decried placing ‘the organisation man in the presidency’, the fact remains that the applicability of the model of administrative due process to these other decision-makers is a function of bureaucratisation of congressional, presidential, and judicial decision-making processes. There is considerable evidence to support the proposition that the trend in each of these areas is towards greater bureaucratization. To this extent, the potential extension of the public-interest theory of the ‘Due-Process-Equilibrium Realists’ is correspondingly enhanced.

Public interest is something distinctive that arises within, among, apart from, and above private interests, focusing in government some of the most elevated aspiration and deepest devotion of which human beings are capable. The inner moral satisfaction of responsible administrators turns on the degree to which they have been able to inject consideration of the public interest in the face of a natural inclination of spokesmen for private interests to see those interests as the undiluted public interest.

It is a political function, involving essentially the weighing of forces and the subjective identification of the narrow area within which these forces may be balanced and the exercising of discretion concerning the point within that area at which acceptability and public interest may be effectively and properly maximised.

This emphasis upon the political function of bureaucracy is a major theme in all of Appleby’s writings, and would place him among the equilibrium theorists.

Unless one has a theory that can explain in operational terms, how and why bureaucracy must represent the inarticulate interests of inchoate masses, reliance must be-as it so largely is-upon theology. Personal prejudices and one’s professional viewpoint must not be confused with the public interest.

The current tensions in Pakistan-India ties and the recent turbulence in Pakistan-US relations are cases which fall in area of National Interest. Pakistan is keen to ensure peace and security for the sake of the welfare of the people. Conditions have to be created to settle issues which are source of worry as well as an existential question for the country. A workable methodology has to be evolved with the cooperation and assistance of international community to ensure peace in the region, including Afghanistan.

First key step has been taken towards FATA mainstreaming. National Assembly has unanimously passed bill to bring tribal areas under superior Court’s control. The internal issue was rightly stated as an issue of ‘Public interest’, which is now on its way to ‘Common understanding’ and cooperation for internal stability of the country.

Similarly, there are other vital issues of ‘Public Interest’ which need to be looked into to the satisfaction of the people for progress and Justice in Pakistan. One such issue is the recruitment for central superior services and related matters of training and capacity-building to meet the goal of excellence, objectives of efficiency, economy, effectiveness and removing inequalities found in our civil services and the need for promoting the norm of merit and excellence. Extra attention is needed to ensure higher standards of performance and evaluation.

We can go on discussing issues Confronting Pakistan in the realm of ‘Public Interest’ and National Interest. Focus on human resource management can help improve the effectiveness of personal and financial disciplines and its upgrading along with better service prospects for capable individuals to opt for high level government service.

The writer is former Director, National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA), Government of Pakistan, a Political analyst, a public policy expert and an author. His book post 9/11 Pakistan was published in the United States

Published in Daily Times, January 16^th 2018.