Cat Have Their Tongue?

Dialogue has been identified as being the barrier to policy makers and the public when addressing community issues. It is thought to give knowledge to both the policy maker and the public by allowing each other to hear different sides of an issue in order to extract the knowledge needed for action and input. However, after thinking about all of the community meetings in which I've attended, I was left wondering exactly how much dialogue and ‘knowledge’ goes into decision-making. Is it illusionary to believe that a policy maker with no direct experience with an issue will be able to understand how the issue impedes others? If this policy maker needs other people to help facilitate urgency or ‘frame’ an issue for his or her understanding, exactly how is this ‘knowledge’ used?

Also, I have previously learned that policy makers do not even use the various research that social scientists provide as ‘knowledge’ for decision-making and this concept was made clear at many a policy meeting I’ve attended. Unless a policy maker has a unique situation (directly connected by experience or well-informed on the issue) in which to effectively weigh options for solutions, he or she may make decisions based on his or her own mind thought. As in, using their own value system and beliefs to assess and address a problem and choosing to ignore any sort of ‘knowledge’ that does not mesh with what they believe to be true even if it is not deliberate. The policy maker will miss out on valuable information that could inform the decision-making process and I find this to be a significant complexity in policy and planning and I am anxious to research more on how it’s dealt with before joining that world.