As a whole, the
public policy process is multi-layered. In a recent ONS publication “Measuring
Subjective Wellbeing for Public Policy (2011) the authors argue that: “In order
for any account of wellbeing to be useful in policy, it must satisfy three
general conditions. It must be: a) theoretically rigorous, b) policy relevant
and c) empirically robust. In other
words any policy promoting well-being and happiness needs to conceptualise the
policy aims (for example happiness) and contextualise the aim(s) in a theoretically
rigorous manner
For example,
any policy that is designed to improve children and young peoples well-being
needs to consider developmental theories and concepts of child and childhood
alongside the policy aims. It’s also essential that theories of policy process
itself are also taken into consideration. In any public policy process high number of stakeholders
are involved. All stakeholders need to be taken into consideration in the
process. For example, children’s
participation in policy design process can be argued from a number of perspectives.
A Children’s Right campaigner might point out that in the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) (UNCRC), Article 12 states that:
“State parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her
own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the
child. Could a child development specialist argue that involving young people
through participation would support children’s development?
The ONS
(2011) report argues for the need for the policy to be relevant, saying: “By
policy relevant, we mean that the account of wellbeing must be politically and
socially acceptable and also well understood in policy circles.” This statement
is very general and gives very little practical advice on designing a policy.
Political opinions and arguments change depending on who is in the positions of
power and ‘socially acceptable’ can also be quite hard to define. For a policy
to be relevant it needs to be successful in terms of achieving its aims to
serve the people for whom it has been designed. Any policy needs to enhance
peoples desire to live their life in a way that enables them to reach their
full potential.
The third
corner stone of prompting wellbeing according to ONS (2011) is that it needs to
be empirically robust. The ONS report (2011) outlines how to achieve this by
stating: “… empirically rigorous, we
mean that the account of wellbeing can be measured in a quantitative way that
suggests that it is reliable and valid as an account of wellbeing”. This
statement from ONS reflects the tradition of valuing quantitative data over
qualitative when organising and presenting data. However, the same ONS (2011) document points
out that: “Subjective
well-being is beginning to be used to
monitor progress and to inform policy…” This provides further evidence
of the current trend of valuing subjective measures of well-being.
It might be
that subjective well-being measures alone are not sufficient and that research
process needs to remain open minded allowing a number of methods to be
considered and used.
As a
conclusion well-being and happiness research can play a meaningful role in
policy design. This can be achieved by first conceptualising well-being and
happiness and then developing conceptualisations that are relevant and
sensitive to local context. This can be achieved by involving all interest groups
and stakeholders in the process.
