Introduction

Public policy research is an important tool for the attainment of the so-called “evidence-based policy and programming”. A question which is often less answered by the proponents of “evidence-based policy and programing” – most often than not, the top-level decision makers at the echelons of government – is how the evidence for policy comes by. What challenges researches face and how do they mitigate these challenges, if any, so as to ensure policy recommendations accruing from their enquiries are not only practical but also transformative. This term paper, limited by space - number of words, will delve into this question. It will exploit an argumentative essay framework to highlight and briefly discuss four merits and four demerits a common phenomenon in qualitative research – presence of group interests. Before this is presented the following section will operationalize the key concepts used in the paper and delimit the study – highlight the students’ interpretation and consequently contextualization of the term paper question. The conclusion section will restate the key arguments of the study and highlight on the way forward – the strategies for buttressing the benefits of the group interests while preventing and mitigating its demerits to the process of collecting qualitative data in policy research.

Operationalizing the Concepts and Context of the Term Paper

Before undertaking the main task, it is imperative to define some of the key used and implied in this paper and to draw the boundaries within which the term paper question will be explored. The oldest framework in the history of research is quantitative design and emphasizes on generalizability of the results, possible through numerical summaries from survey results (Creswell, 2003). The other, fairly new, is qualitative which emphasizes quality as opposed to numbers. It employs techniques that allow the researcher to understand perspectives and lived experiences of the targeted publics often in their natural contexts (Quinn, 2002; Bhattacherjee, 2012; Morten, 2013). It differs from traditional procedures used in quantitative research in that it involves purposeful sampling, collection of open-ended data, analysis of texts or pictures, and personal interpretation of findings (p. xxiv). A third one, the latest research design is mixed-methods which combine qualitative and quantitative strategies in a bid remedy the inherent shortcomings of using a single design. All these designs have their own methods and techniques, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. This is also true when they are used to study public policy.

Both qualitative and quantitative[1] research methods and/or techniques[2] can be affected both positively and negatively by the presence of group interests. However, this clearly more pronounced in qualitative research than in quantitative. The open-ended discussion technique used in qualitative research is often an avenue for participants to express group interests – the expression of particular needs of a given group; organized, semi-organized or unorganized[3]. The following paragraphs will highlight on the merits and demerits of group interests during the process of collecting qualitative data.

Public policy has been variously defined and thoroughly criticized (see e.g., Colebatch, 2009; Page, 2006; Stone, 2002). Professor Anyebe gives one of the most comprehensive definitions: actions, intensions and actual programs explicitly laid out by the government to facilitate effective and efficient reactions to public demands (Anyebe, 2018, p. 2). Public policy analysis, according to Colebatch (2009), has mutated to study of the processes of “governance” and is often than not collaborative and multi-layered.  It can be therefore deduced that public policy research can be understood as the objective enquiry into the processes through which various categories of the public, or right-bearers, raise demands, and the government and her development partners respond to these demands through reaction, communicating intensions, and undertaking actual programs as supply to the public demands. It is in this process of enquiring into the processes of governance – or public policy - that a difficult question emerges: how can researchers successfully enquire into and generate reliable information as policy recommendations? What broader frameworks – research designs, methods and techniques (Creswell, 2003; Kothari, 2004, Silverman, 2004) can policy researcher use and what challenges and opportunities does each present? How can policy researcher mitigate these? This paper attempts explore these questions in the context of qualitative policy research, zooming in on a common challenge and opportunity – the presence of group interests.

Advantages of group interests in qualitative policy research

There are four main advantages that a public policy researcher utilizing qualitative techniques can derive from expression of group interests during focus group discussions (FGDs). Focus group discussions is a group of 4-6 (Bryman, 2012), 6-10 (Bhattacherjee, 2012, p. 78) or 12-15 (Babbie, 2008, p. 78) of a people of a sub-category or sub-culture intentionally gathered by the researcher to ventilate on the thematic areas concerning a given policy intervention or to explore avenues for policy reforms or to just generate evidence for policy activism and so on. By people expressing group interest four benefits can arise to reinforce the researcher’s ability to make practical policy recommendations.

First, group interests can reveal potential policy impacts on a given category of stakeholders. Take for example a researcher gathering information from agricultural farmers to establish their perspectives a proposed cess policy by County X. the researcher is likely to reach out to different categories of the beneficiaries as well as would-be implementers of the policy. On the beneficiary category, the researcher may engage with horticultural, aquaculture, floriculture and so on sub-category. On the other hand, the researcher may engage with the current contractors for collecting county taxes, the actual personnel collecting the taxes, the finance administrators and so on. The researcher may also reach out to interests groups concerned with, for example, safe and climate-friendly agriculture and so on. By listening to the different groups asserting and justifying their interests, the researcher may build a nuanced analysis of the different potential benefits of the proposed policy to both the government, the primary target beneficiaries as well as the role that the concerned interest groups can play to compliment intended government interventions.

Secondly, expression of group interests may be critical to a qualitative policy researcher as it may present the opportunity to reveal underlying group relations – asymmetric or otherwise and how proposed policy reforms or new policies can intervene. An important example of such a case may be in the research of reasons for increased crime rates in town B despite the implementation of policy Y on community policing. By targeting different categories such the patrol police, the investigative police, the media, the criminal groups, peace and stability CBO and other non-governmental outfits; the researcher may gain – due to open discussions that may prompt a given sub-category of the population to express interests as a group the underlying dynamism that feed into the relationship, for example, between the police and the criminal gangs, police and investigative journalists, and so on. This is a critical value additional in policy research that may be only available in the FGD and sometimes in key informant interview techniques - when the researcher prompts questions that will lead the interviewee to discuss group interests.

Thirdly, for the case of a policy study that focuses on assessment of a policy implementation, through a programmatic intervention, expression of group interests may be significant insofar as it may point to the current status of policy implementation and the extent to which proposed policy recommendations can be radically or incrementally implemented. For example, if a researcher is interested in understanding the extent to which the Kenya National Strategy for Countering Violent Extremism (NSCVE) has been implemented across the so called new frontiers for radicalization and recruitment “hotspot”[4] counties in Kenya, he may narrow down to the so-called County Engagement Forums[5] of a select number counties he may want to study and within that forum target the different stakeholders – often organized into pillar teams[6] - in FGDs. The FGD platform with a homogenous group, for this case members of given pillar, may provide the discussants with a chance to ventilate on how the NSCVE has cascaded and the challenges they face as the direct implementers of its intentions for reducing violent extremism. Policy recommendations based on such sub-group based perspectives of status of policy implementation will likely be more nuanced and practical, that is, disaggregated by category of implementers and beneficiaries. Additionally, based on the variations in the extent of implementation from sub-group to sub-group, policy recommendations for reforms may be differentiated according to whether they should radically or incrementally implemented.

Last but by no means least, expression of group interests during data collection for policy studies can be a critical tool for the researcher to understand the different layers interests and empowerment of the concerned stakeholders in a given policy and hence how to make relevant policy recommendations disaggregated by stakeholder. If a policy researcher wants to enquire into the issue of unregulated sand mining in County X for example, he or she will likely target groups such as the government in line ministries - such the ministry of environment, land and climate change -, the sand loaders, the sand miners, the sand truck drivers and truck owners, the sand landlords, the traffic police and other policing systems concerned with sand, and so on. A qualitative research through focus group discussions or key informant interviews with multiple policy makers and implementers will provide the chance for these different categories of stakeholders to express their needs as a group.

For example, the truckers will likely reveal the dynamics of their involvement in illegal sand transport, the loaders and the miners will likely reveal why they must continue to mine within sites declared illegal, the policing institutions like National Environmental Protection Agency (NEMA) will likely tell the stories about policy gaps, technical capacity and so. And the same will occur across the other interviews with other stakeholders or actors. This information will likely be helpful for a holistic and underneath the data interpretation by the policy researcher. The researcher will be able to discern causative agents for vulnerabilities among and within sub-groups that feed into each other to render stakeholders involved in the issue of sand mining disempowered. This is critical in making policy recommendations for transformative not transactional reforms, within sand sector, as is very true to all other sectors. Despite these advantages of group interest during qualitative research, disadvantages also abound. These are discussed below.

Disadvantages of group interests in qualitative research

A number of disadvantages may accrue to a policy researcher when the phenomenon of group interests emerges in the course of open-ended but guided discussions. To begin with, uncontrolled asserting of group interests by a participant (in the case of KII) or participants (in FGDs) can consume time and lead to incomplete discussion of questions spelt in schedules (FGD) and guides (KII). More often than not, when people express the interests of groups they are loyal to, they do so assertively and with the aim to persuade and dissuade. This is also very true for qualitative research, particularly of the researcher fails to take control. In the process, much time will be spent by participant (s) looking at issue from their interests and most probably in mono-directionally. This not only leave several aspects of the topic uncovered but also leaves the researcher with very less time to get other perspectives and to complete his/her questions as spelt out in the interviews protocol.

Secondly, the act of asserting group interests can easily veer off the researcher from the question lines/guide he intended to explore/examine/establish. While qualitative research is natural non-systematic, when participants in an interview become too asserting of how they think the policy should be like, why it is bad or why they think it needs to be reformed; and begin to give reasons for the same, if the researcher fails to skillfully maneuver, and bring the participants back to track, he may end up doing a lot of over probing for unintended dimensions of the research problem. In the end, it could just be that several questions are unanswered. It is therefore important for a qualitative policy researcher to understand the strategies for remedying such situations, and not going too far from his original design, as often speculated in the thematic/topical areas to be explored through an interview protocol.

Thirdly, asserting group interests during a qualitative research will likely limit the participation of disenfranchised members of the group or participants from semi-organized or unorganized groups. While it is critical to ensure that the principle of power-relations is catered for while planning for qualitative policy studies, it is never possible to bring to the table people of equal measure in terms of their social and power relations. Due this this, some members, particularly during FGD discussions, will likely be extroverts and other not. Others will likely know it all or pretend to while others may be less knowledgeable or simply may not want to express or share what they know, which could be the exact opposite of what the others pretend to assert as the group interest and therefore, needs. It is upon a policy researcher to be informed of this often unavoidable problem and mitigate it accordingly.

Lastly, if uncontrolled, group interests’ expression process may turn out chaotic and dilute the role of research as a peaceful non-partisan way of evidence generation to a fighting-enabling environment hence severing relationships between groups, which should cooperate and collaborate to solve a public problem. It is recommended that above all, homogeneity principles is considered during the design of a given FGD-based research, both policy and otherwise. However, due to the costs implications that come with reaching out to a clear-cut population sub-category, some researchers resort to mixing sub-groups and bringing them together to ventilate upon certain themes/topics relevant to the aspect of public policy –or other problems - they study. In this case high level of care must be taken. Take for example a researcher undertaking a research on the possible back and forward linkages between drug addicts, drug sellers and the policing institutions. The researcher may decide to bring representatives from these sub-groups together to ventilate on why the issue of drugs and substance abuse continue despite clear policies and guideline from the Ministry of Public Health and concerned departments and agencies. In the course the discussions, each category will assert their position and it could be the case that the process of asserting group positions turns into name calling and reporting of who does what and why. This can end up in the uncouth event of exchange of fists most probably between the police and representatives from the drug addict groups. This may erode the whole essence of qualitative research. It is important to therefore understand the different mitigation measures that policy researchers may take to limit or prevent to demerits that may affect successful data collection for qualitative policy enquiries. The conclusion below highlights a few of these.

Conclusions: Strategies for Preventing and Mitigating the shortcoming of Group Interests

This term paper has argued that group interests can be both an asset and a curse for a qualitative policy researcher. The paper has identified four grounds for each of these opposite cases, by way of giving practical examples under which each scenario, beneficial or otherwise, can arise. The main argument is therefore that qualitative policy researcher needs to know how to buttress the merits and prevent or mitigate the shortcomings of the phenomenon of assertion of group interests. This conclusion section highlights a few of these strategies. Due to space limitations for the paper, these are not discussed. They include: adhere to the principle of homogeneity and power-relations when deciding on potential participants; allow the participants set ground rules before beginning the session: should cover time for each participant, respect for others’ opinion, allowing everyone to express, etc.; a scoping study is very critical as it will help research define and refine thematic/topical areas to be covered and avoid exploring unintended directions; take control of too vocal and group interests asserting individuals; follow the guide as much as possible and ensure there are predefined probing questions based on the results of the scoping study; and finally, properly introduce the intensions and scope of your study before beginning of data collection session.

Odhiambo Kasera is  graduate student and part-time lecturer at Maseno University.

REFERENCES

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[1] Though rare, it is possible especially when a questionnaire assessing a given policy is only administered to one group of the stakeholder concerned with the policy. This will lead to conclusions which are not balanced because the respondents only gave one side of the story, which was later used to develop statistical summaries used to push for policy/programmatic actions. Hence, for quantitative design impact of presence of group interest is at results not process/data collection.

[2] Some research methodologists separate methods from techniques. Kothari (2004) for example argue that methods are the general approaches for example interviews while techniques are they very direct tools used to capture, gather or analyze data. For example if interviews is a methods, techniques under the methods may include: self-administered interviews, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and so on.

[3] Organized groups can be pressure groups, groups from the government as an actor in public policy, the academia, the media fraternity, and the business associations and so on. Unorganized may include unregistered table banking groups, artisans, boda boda groups and so on. Semi-organized groups may include groups such as grassroots CBOs whose autonomy may not be as strong as registered category to push through their agenda in a given public policy intervention.

[4] These are listed in the website of the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) as Kisumu, Busia, Siaya (within Western Kenya region).

[5] In the NSCVE, CEFs is platform for governmental and non-governmental actors who come together to report what they doing regarding a given pillar concerned with prevention of violent extremism. It is chaired by the county commissioner (CC) and the Government at the Assistant County Commissioner stationed at the CC’s office acts as the secretary.

[6] There are about 9 pillar/domains for preventing violent extremism in the NSCVE, including gender, economic, media and so on.