- Joined
- Dec 30, 2010
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I posit in this article, four major barriers to real change:
1. A subservient relationship with the civil service
2. Members of parliament who are not fulltime at the job
3. Its cadre system and a lack of internal party democracy
4. Stonewalled by the government’s refusal to share data
Given their origins, ministers bring with them, not ideas developed by the party (which, anyway, are perhaps non-existent) but the mindsets and priorities dear to the civil service. They quickly become defensive about their ministries’ track record and resistant to change.
Unsurprisingly, the party has been hollowed out, its role seen by the over-dominant civil service as that of its public relations arm, so to speak. Party members are expected to sell to the public policies that were developed, often in grand isolation, within the civil service. Members of parliament’s (MP) meet the people sessions have become the complaints windows of the various ministries, and MPs reduced to petition writers.
MPs who hold down fulltime jobs outside of their political responsibilities simply do not have the time for all this. What little time they have, they become petition writers for their constituents, or embarrasingly bad speechmakers at “grassroots” events.
How would fresh ideas emerge from such an inbred circle? And even if one does, how will it rise up the agenda in such a pot of conventional minds?
Moreover, since cadres are chosen by the top leadership, there is the near certainty that they do not reflect ordinary citizens at all.
- http://yawningbread.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/four-barriers-to-remaking-the-pap/#more-6355
1. A subservient relationship with the civil service
2. Members of parliament who are not fulltime at the job
3. Its cadre system and a lack of internal party democracy
4. Stonewalled by the government’s refusal to share data
Given their origins, ministers bring with them, not ideas developed by the party (which, anyway, are perhaps non-existent) but the mindsets and priorities dear to the civil service. They quickly become defensive about their ministries’ track record and resistant to change.
Unsurprisingly, the party has been hollowed out, its role seen by the over-dominant civil service as that of its public relations arm, so to speak. Party members are expected to sell to the public policies that were developed, often in grand isolation, within the civil service. Members of parliament’s (MP) meet the people sessions have become the complaints windows of the various ministries, and MPs reduced to petition writers.
MPs who hold down fulltime jobs outside of their political responsibilities simply do not have the time for all this. What little time they have, they become petition writers for their constituents, or embarrasingly bad speechmakers at “grassroots” events.
How would fresh ideas emerge from such an inbred circle? And even if one does, how will it rise up the agenda in such a pot of conventional minds?
Moreover, since cadres are chosen by the top leadership, there is the near certainty that they do not reflect ordinary citizens at all.
- http://yawningbread.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/four-barriers-to-remaking-the-pap/#more-6355
