Problems and prospects of institutionalization of political analytics in the public administration of Ukraine

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Dnipro National University,

Professor of the Department of Sociology and Public Administration

Problems and prospects of institutionalization of political analytics in the public administration of Ukraine

Yu. Kalnysh, Dr Sc. Public Admin., Professor

Dnipro, Ukraine

Abstract

The purpose of the study the materials of which are outlined in this article, consisted in the fact that: in the context of modern world experience, outline the range of concepts of institutionalized political analytics; to the extent possible, answer the question: "Is political analytics in Ukraine requested by state authorities, and if so, to what extent is information and analytical work incorporated into state administration and the practice of non-state structures of the political system?"; to indicate the areas of training of professional analysts for the needs of state administration and the political system as a whole.

Summing up the above, it should be noted that scientific political analytics in Ukraine undoubtedly has certain chances for survival and development. Another matter is the probability of this survival, and in what forms it will take place. Several promising directions are being formed, from the point of view of practical demand and unfilled niches in the political market:

First of all, this is a niche of electoral analytics that has already been developed to a certain extent. Secondly, a number of niches in the state administration system that economists and lawyers have not yet occupied and are in no hurry to occupy, for example, the so-called civil (or public) expertise and monitoring: areas that are often financed not from the state budget, but from international funds organizations, and here a significant social and humanitarian, and not only "technocratic" component of expert evaluations is required.

Thirdly, another direction that is actualized today is a certain "cultivation" of persons who make managerial decisions, or the introduction of a certain analytical consciousness in the decision-making process, combining politics with intelligence.

But, if it is really so difficult to combine these two types of activity in one person, the issue can be solved by increasing the role and status of the political expert in state authorities.

And, finally, the fourth direction, which was already discussed above. This is the professional training of political analysts. Since universities are already operating today, where disciplines that include political analytics are introduced in the process of training political scientists. In Ukraine, until now, there is a question about the ratio of courses in academic political science and empirical and applied political analytics.

Keywords: Public Administration, Political Analytics, Political Analysis, Political Expertise.

Formulation of the problem

The topic of political analytics is huge and multifaceted in itself. When we say "analyst", it can refer to very different figures, starting with an "academic thinker" and ending with an average commentator on "hot topics". Currently, in domestic practice, there is a rather broad understanding of political analytics, first of all, as something that television commentators deal with and constantly refer to on a daily basis. But there is also a more special, specific meaning of this concept in the context of the Western experience, and above all, the American experience, where analytics is more differentiated and, probably, more complex. Meanwhile, the problem of analytical support of the process of making public-management decisions in Ukraine is becoming more and more relevant.

Currently, non-state analytical centers (so-called think tanks) have become the most widespread in Ukraine. They are engaged in the most diverse types of political analysis: from the analysis of electoral situations and the planning of election campaigns to the development of strategic programs for the country's development in the long and medium term. By the way, many such analytical reports can now be found on the websites of domestic think tanks. However, the success of political analytics depends on the need for its results by public administration bodies and the public of the country.

The purpose of the study the materials of which are outlined in this article, consisted in the fact that:

- in the context of modern world experience, outline the range of concepts of institutionalized political analytics;

- to the extent possible, answer the question: "Is political analytics in Ukraine requested by state authorities, and if so, to what extent is information and analytical work incorporated into state administration and the practice of non-state structures of the political system?"

- to indicate the areas of training of professional analysts for the needs of state administration and the political system as a whole.

Results and Discussion

The emergence of political analytics as a specific branch of scientific knowledge and practical activity is usually dated to the middle of the 20th century. However, the deep origins of political analytics have a much older history. Indeed, it can be assumed that even without realizing it, people were engaged in political analysis long before the emergence of the state itself. First of all, such practical skills were formed on the basis of life experience, through trial and error, and were transmitted through social traditions. But already with the emergence of the first state entities, political analytics was institutionalized as a branch of professional activity of persons who manage the state. Many centuries have passed since then, and the world's leading science has finally recognized political analytics as a meaningful part of its continuum.

However, let's return to the fact that in domestic science it has not yet been determined what political analytics is. When they say "political analysis", anything can be behind it: it can be just a journalist's comment, a philosophical essay, an informative material - a digest, but in the end it can be a really professional collective report or an individual expert's note. That is, we have formed a colossal palette of interpretations of the concept of "political analytics", starting from abstract considerations and ending with the most complex technologies in combination with mass polling, mathematical modeling, etc. What is the root of the problem here? Probably the fact that both in the practical and in the academic environment this is not clearly fixed enough, different things are understood.

Mainly three understandings of political analytics are used. The first is academic or fundamental policy analysis; secondly, it is an empirical analysis of politics, and, in fact, an applied political analysis.

Academic analytics basically means all theoretical political science, that is, almost any kind of analytics in politics: comparative analysis, sociological analysis, psychological analysis, regional analysis - whatever. Let's take as an example the well-known textbook by R. Dahl "Modern Political Analysis" [1], which was published from 1963 to 2003 as a classic textbook on political theory; or one of D. Easton's latest monographs "The Analysis of Political Structure" [2], etc. And in the end, this is already reflected in dozens of "Rational choice theory" textbooks, in which "analysis" is present in combination with the theory of rational choice. Here we are faced with a rather difficult problem: If analysis is the whole of political science, then why and who needs any special political analysis? And in general, is there a great need to highlight a set of its additional contents, instead of fixing the basic definition of "fundamental political research" in the professional language of political theory?

The second direction is empirical analytics. Here the situation is also extremely complicated and uncertain. Let's give an example: at Yale and Harvard universities, you can observe that what we call "analysis", there are 2-3 courses called "methods": "research methods in political science", "qualitative methods", "quantitative" methods", etc. [3; 4]. Thus, a situation is created in which the concept of "analysis" is placed in such courses, which our sociologists have long "taken out of the brackets" of political analytics. We are talking about analytical methods that are used by almost all social sciences.

And, finally, the third is applied political analysis, that is, what the Americans call "Political analysis", or another - "state policy analysis" - "Policy analysis". And for more than 35 years, these disciplines have existed as academic disciplines, twenty years behind empirical analysis, which has existed as a profession in the United States for more than half a century. Today, both in Ukraine and in Russia, we are faced with the phenomenon of "primitive syncretism", only in the field of the professional "workshop" of political analysis. In the West, the state of dismemberment of political analytics, which includes many types of scientific and analytical work, is a long-passed stage. Today, in many respects, we are repeating the experience that Western science has gained over the past 70 years - the experience of differentiation.

In addition, in the context of the development of the modern system of public administration, the concept of "political analytics" acquires a fourth meaning - expert support of the process of state decision-making, i.e., a field that in the West is called "Policy evaluation" and is considered as an independent type of professional activity that most often involves related to the development of state programs in various areas of domestic and foreign policy. In domestic literature, this type of activity is most often equated with the concept of "state policy analysis" [5]. We can only partially agree with this identification, since the analysis of state policy is not limited to political analysis alone. In the context of the subject of our research, it is most likely necessary to talk about the political examination of state policy and management activity. However, the definition of "political analysis of state policy" in the national scientific lexicon does not take root, if only because it sounds like too long a tautology. In this regard, we suggest that the scientific community discuss the issue of implementing the concept of "political expertise in public administration" into practice.

The fact is that expert divisions have already been created in state bodies, which should monitor all types of policies, starting from state programs and ending with public actions. And in the end, in most cases, these units are called to carry out strategic planning in state authorities.

In domestic politics, largely thanks to the emergence of the Institute of Strategic Studies, the words "strategy", "strategic planning", "strategic programming" are increasingly included in our political vocabulary. This is very good, because it shows that the trends of the market economy also come into politics; no responsible business structure refuses to create plans for its strategic development for at least 5-10 years. Many businessmen enter politics with ideas of strategic planning. informational political analytical public administration

Another thing that is paradoxical is that we do not try too hard to take international experience into account. What is meant is the circumstance when the development of science is determined by the sphere of its internal differentiation (although the reverse process - integration) also occurs in parallel. We are faced with a situation when an "analyst", i.e. a person who practices political analytics, is forced to simultaneously engage in academic research (related to the identification of the patterns of development of the domestic society), empirical science (including the development of empirical methods), and personally carry out analytical practice, that is, to give practical recommendations. Professional practices were mixed, in particular, the problems of research aimed at studying the patterns of development of the political system, the development of empirical methods, and the implementation of applied analysis. This "syncretism" of the West has long passed, and for some reason we are repeating it again.

First of all, we are talking about the applied aspect of analytics, that is, applied analysis. Of course, in a broad sense - "all political science is analysis", just as Hegel claimed that: "all science is applied logic". Wherever political science works, there is room for dismemberment of a complex object into simpler components. If we talk about the practical aspect of analytics, then, in our opinion, different areas of professional activity should be singled out.

There is a direction designed to solve fundamental problems: the creation of a paradigm, a concept, a theory (if someone undertakes a similar task, the creation of something fundamentally new for science, his ambition is embodied in writing a monograph, creating a scientific school, contributing to the development of the socio-political theory of the world etc).

However, if we set ourselves another task - scientific support of the political process, both state management and non-state influence on this process, then here the task is completely different. Here, the analyst must solve the problems of a specific client, making his recommendations in the process of making and implementing decisions. Three related but distinctly different types of analysis are contemplated here. One is empirical, the other is applied, and the third is expert. Empirical analysis in itself can only be of value to basic science as a means of testing its conclusions. In practice, its value is determined by the extent to which it is able to provide methodological tools for applied political analysis and expertise. In other words, the same methods, for example, focus groups, can be used with equal success both for writing electoral analytics "for elections" and for substantiation (or vice versa - criticism) of this or that government program. Accordingly, in the system of professional training of analysts, first of all, four types of political analytics should be distinguished: fundamental, empirical, applied and expert.

The last two questions that should be addressed in the context of the research objectives are the question of practical questionability and the quality standards of political analysis. The issue of questionability is usually primarily related to the practical aspect of political analytics - to political processes and public administration.

In the case of public administration, the analyst has now started to do a lot of PR. This is due to the fact that state administration bodies, instead of managing the political process, often began to deal with its PR support. Instead of solving and overcoming the problem, a special political technology is increasingly being used, which in the professional literature is called "steaming the problem". That is, a certain virtualization of the problem takes place. Political expertise in this case turns out to be unnecessary, its place is taken by another political technology. Since, instead of ensuring effective governance of the state, the focus of attention is mainly shifted to ensuring media campaigns to demonstrate its virtual successes, and political marketing, as a tool of manipulative technologies, etc., comes to the fore.

And what is the state of affairs in terms of the need for effective public administration? It should be noted here that, in fact, all over the world, analytics is in a difficult relationship with the authorities. In particular, even Americans have this: they often complain in their speeches, articles, and even textbooks that politicians do not listen to them too little, or even at all. The fact that there are analysts themselves, and there are completely different decision-makers, and at the same time the latter often do not take into account what others do, even if they are interested in their opinion, is not at all unique to Ukraine.

In particular, precisely for this reason, the training of American political analysts begins with the fact that they are explained that the customer needs not only conscientious collection of data and ascertainment of facts, but more specifically, an assessment equivalent to the client's needs, diagnostic and prognostic, expressed in clear and understandable practical recommendations. Unfortunately, it is this side of the issue that we have worked out the least. It is precisely in connection with this that the question of the small demand of political analytics often arises.

The clients of policy expertise often exert a decisive influence on its methods and results, which leads to the emergence of a significant difference between applied analytics and policy expertise. A non-governmental client always pays more attention to the results of an analytical study, if only because he pays for them from his own pocket. A person who makes a decision on behalf of the state, on the contrary, even if he turns to political expertise, as a rule requires the expert to provide a convincing justification for the decision already made. In political analysis, which is carried out on the order of state authorities, as a rule, even the topic of the works is determined by the extent to which their results can be requested by politicians and statesmen. Which, in turn, requires a bona fide political expert to use special political technologies to "promote" his proposals and recommendations in the authorities and state administration.

This problem is the exclusive know-how of the post-Soviet state administration. At one time, it was the Americans who introduced the term "feasibility" - "possibility" of decisions. That is, the expert's recommendation must be not only real, but also "passable" (acceptable for the object of management). It is possible to justify the rational decision itself, but if it does not meet the needs of the subject, it will be rejected. In other words, we are talking about the translation of the analytical "semi-finished product" into the language of the government and, in particular, the inclusion in its composition of such a component that will interest (or frighten) the government. It is not about the abstract interest of the government, but about the conflicting paradigms of "indifference" of the government and society.

At the same time, modern political analytics, even applied political analytics, does not include in its system the activity of active lobbying, promotion of its recommendations to authorities.

Previously, political analysis assumed, as a rule, that politicians and state managers lacked the information and knowledge necessary to make a political and managerial decision. In the modern practice of public administration, the situation is usually different: politicians and officials are faced with an excessive amount of information on issues of interest to them, with competing positions of experts on certain problems, with disorganization, unreliability, excessive cost, and deliberate distortion of such information in various lobbying interests. In these conditions, the task and condition of survival of political analytics in the market of consulting services for politicians and heads of state authorities is to provide information to state authorities in the right form, at the right time, in the most accessible and short form.

In the future, the question of the intellectual component of state administration, to what extent it is present in it, remains relevant. Until recently, economists and lawyers remained the bearers of state administrative powers to a large extent. Therefore, many practical steps of state administration are carried out mainly taking into account the economic and legal aspects of analytical support. People in power often look at problems in terms of optimal and short-term macroeconomic indicators, rather than in terms of the social conflicts or humanitarian disasters that such optimization can cause. Today, many social reforms are largely "captured" by economists. But, for example, in state policy there are problems related to national security, defense capability and international relations, which cannot be solved only thanks to economic calculations. Meanwhile, as the welfare of the society grows, security problems occupy an increasingly significant place. The same with poverty: preventing its spread, increasing the factors of vertical and horizontal mobility of labor resources, studying the social factors influencing these processes are primarily the tasks of sociologists and political scientists.

However, now political experts are losing to economists probably because they are more often convinced that the results of their professional activity should be asked by politicians due to the fact that they have a high scientific value. In practice, this almost never happens.

As already mentioned, very often political analysts are forced to justify decisions already made by politicians and state leaders, and not to develop these decisions for them. Often, such justifications are made from the standpoint of the ideology of the customers, rather than scientific theories and an objective understanding of the political process. As a result, the scientific and practical significance of the conclusions and recommendations of political analysis is distorted. The problem with the domestic public administration system until recently was that it practically did not use the resources of public policy experience, it was considered ineffective. But even now, what is present from it is mostly PR aimed at forming the personal image of the head of the state power body, at best - of the body itself, and nothing more. Attempts to change the social situation with this PR alone are hopeless, but far from everyone understands this.

In this regard, it is worth returning to the question of political expertise in the modern Western understanding of this type of professional activity. In fact, it uses not only political science, but also economic and social analysis in its tools. It is in this context that we can talk about the creation of effective mechanisms for consulting state authorities. Although, in different political systems, expert opinions are formed in different ways and are used to different extents.

In Ukraine, there is currently a situation of the spread of public consultation mechanisms, when the practice of conducting consultations with scientific organizations and civil society structures is directly integrated into the management decision-making mechanism. The government increasingly understands that it cannot know everything, that it is necessary to involve experts, and the more transparent the procedures, the more objective the process is, including from the point of view of preventing bureaucratic arbitrariness. Increasing the transparency of the Policy Advise procedure is probably already in itself a certain mechanism for increasing its effectiveness in terms of influence on decision-makers. Therefore, we can talk about increasing the prospects of scientific and expert work itself, and institutes that would facilitate the perception of the results of this work, increase the efficiency of their implementation.

The process of further institutionalization of political analytics in our country is as follows: first, the development of public consultation institutes; secondly, further self-organization of the professional expert community.

The role of political analytics is goal setting. In order to obtain a result, in addition to the means, the following are necessary: the goal itself, tasks for its achievement, and quantitative indicators that allow you to assess the level of goal achievement. Economists, for example, can suggest how the goals of state policy can be realized, but political scientists must establish these goals and their priorities. Politicians and state leaders still cannot cope with the well-founded, and not populist, definition of the goals of their activities without analysts.

Conclusions

Summing up the above, it should be noted that scientific political analytics in Ukraine undoubtedly has certain chances for survival and development. Another matter is the probability of this survival, and in what forms it will take place. Several promising directions are being formed, from the point of view of practical demand and unfilled niches in the political market:

First of all, this is a niche of electoral analytics that has already been developed to a certain extent. Secondly, a number of niches in the state administration system that economists and lawyers have not yet occupied and are in no hurry to occupy, for example, the so-called civil (or public) expertise and monitoring: areas that are often financed not from the state budget, but from international funds organizations, and here a significant social and humanitarian, and not only "technocratic" component of expert evaluations is required.

Thirdly, another direction that is actualized today is a certain "cultivation" of persons who make managerial decisions, or the introduction of a certain analytical consciousness in the decision-making process, combining politics with intelligence. Americans have written a lot about this, in particular, one of the paragraphs by David Easton is called: "Analysis versus Politics". Within his incremental approach, he is generally very skeptical about the possibility of a full-fledged combination of politics and intelligence [6]. But, if it is really so difficult to combine these two types of activity in one person, the issue can be solved by increasing the role and status of the political expert in state authorities.

And, finally, the fourth direction, which was already discussed above. This is the professional training of political analysts. Since universities are already operating today, where disciplines that include political analytics are introduced in the process of training political scientists. In Ukraine, until now, there is a question about the ratio of courses in academic political science and empirical and applied political analytics. Throughout the civilized world, this problem has already been solved: these are different courses.

References

2. Easton D. The Analysis of Political Structure. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. 143 p.

3. Harvard University - Degree & Certificate Programs.

4. Departments & Programs. Yale University.

5. Tertychka V.V. Derzhavna polityka: analiz ta zdiysnennya v Ukrayini. Kyiv. Osnovy, 2002. 750 p.

6. Easton D. The Analysis of Political Structure. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. 143 p.

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