The coming collision - Popular expectations versus IMF conditions

Lawrence Powell, Contributor

Jamaica seems headed for a painful collision of two forces. On the one hand, the landslide election has created popular expectations of a new post-Golding progressive era and promises of a better life from a more sincerely 'caring' Government.

On the other, the reality of accumulated Jamaican debt and the harsh conditions soon to be imposed by the IMF's settlement terms will likely make meeting those expectations all but impossible - which could bring an abrupt end to the euphoria of the PNP's current honeymoon phase.

The debt-management 'crisis' has already been much discussed in the pages of The Gleaner. What this piece will instead attempt to do, to complement that, is to clarify the other horn of the dilemma - namely, what we know about the extent of the Jamaican public's expectations for a supportive national government and progressive social policies.

So what do we actually know, about those expectations? Is there actually a conflict looming here?

We do, fortunately, have some related national evidence to draw upon - from the 2006 and 2008 national surveys conducted by UWI's Centre for Leadership and Governance - as to what Jamaicans typically 'expect' their government to provide for them.

In both the 2006 and 2008 national surveys, when presented with a list of 14 "things people typically need at different stages of their lives" (derived from comparable international lists), and when asked who is primarily "responsible" for dealing with each of those types of basic citizen needs, the expectations of most Jamaicans leaned heavily in the direction that "government should be responsible for providing it to all as a basic citizen benefit," rather than "individual citizens should be responsible for providing it for themselves".

The graph accompanying this article summarises these trends, as measured across two successive national surveys. To simplify things a bit, the figures have been averaged across the 2006 and 2008 surveys, then combined into a single bar graph.

Jamaicans' preferences

In both surveys, these 14 'expectations' questions were designed to measure Jamaicans' preferences as to 'individual' versus 'governmental' responsibility for solving problems that emerge in their lives - within a number of basic 'life domains' that are typically of concern to citizens of any society. These 14 life domains are also, not accidentally, those around which political debates over the proper scope and functions of the 'welfare state' have most often been waged within modern industrialised democracies.

The question wording we used was, "Now I am going to read to you a list of things people typically need at different stages of their lives. For each item, indicate whether you feel the GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE for providing it to all as a basic citizen benefit, or you feel INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE for providing it for themselves." This was followed by a list of life situations or needs, as follows:

An adequate retirement income in old age.

Employment training and retraining.

Financial assistance to the disabled.

Financial assistance during periods of unemployment.

Adequate housing, a decent place to live.

Employment, a decent job.

Financial assistance to poor families.

Adequate health and medical care for the elderly.

Adequate health and medical care for the poor.

Adequate health and medical care (for all).

Financial assistance to tertiary (university-level) students.

Childcare assistance for working parents.

Adequate nutrition for school-age children.

Replacement of income lost due to accidental injury at work.

The survey respondents then rated each of these 14 items, using a scale where '1' means that every person should take responsibility for providing it for himself or herself, and '10' means government should be responsible for providing it. Or, if they felt there should be mixed government and individual responsibility for providing it, they could use a number somewhere in between, for example 3, or 5, or 6.

As can be seen in the graph, most of the 1,338 respondents in the 2006 Jamaican national sample, and the 1,499 in the 2008 sample indicated that it is 'the government' that they expect to be primarily responsible for addressing problems of adequate health care, nutrition for school-age children, and providing assistance to the elderly, disabled and poor. For problems related to employment, job training, adequate housing and childcare assistance, the responsibility is seen as being somewhat more mixed - i.e., involving a combination of governmental and individual responsibility for need provision.

But the unmistakable trend here, as the graph shows, is a strong popular assumption that government ('10' on each item) as opposed to the individual ('1' on each item) is to be held primarily responsible for citizen need provision.

For Jamaicans, this expectation is very pronounced, across 13 of the 14 life domains commonly addressed by social policies of the modern industrial 'welfare state'. In all life domains except childcare, the individual-government balance tips in the direction of government as preferred solver of problems. Other internationally comparative studies, using these same items, have corroborated this overall Jamaican preference for government dependency rather than individual autonomy, in contrast to the substantially more individualistic orientations of citizens in nations like the United States - where average scores for all 14 items are consistently much lower on the 1-10 scales.

appropriate and fair

Anthropologists and cross-cultural psychologists tell us that these individual-vs-government preferences for solving problems are often, in turn, a function of the degree of 'individualism' or 'collectivism' embedded in the dominant customs of the culture as a whole - which has implications for what kinds of policy solutions a people will deem appropriate and fair, and are willing to tolerate.

Considered as a whole, it is hard to find much evidence in these Jamaican national patterns that would suggest that American-style 'individual self-reliance' and 'deregulated free market' models of economic development are likely to be tolerated by the Jamaican public for any length of time as being 'fair' or 'appropriate' - within the broader cultural context of the community-oriented, and dependency-oriented, cultural milieu that has evolved historically in Jamaica (as compared with more radically individualistic cultures like the US.)

These results suggest that most Jamaicans would apparently prefer that the nation's policies be based on a pragmatic balance of public and private approaches, administered by a maternalistic state that regulates market forces in the public interest, with mixed governmental and individual responsibility for social problem solution.

In the present context of a developing Jamaican economy with very limited resources, which finds itself in the midst of a prolonged global recession and a debt crisis - the 'gap' between such strong expectations for the maternal role of government in meeting citizen needs and the reality of tough austerity measures is likely to breed a sense of unfair treatment.

This sense of betrayal would inevitably be the case, regardless of which party is in power, but the contrast is now more dramatic because the PNP has historically favoured a more nurturant role for government.

Lawrence Alfred Powell is the former polling director for the Centre for Leadership and Governance at UWI, Mona, now honorary research fellow at the Centre of Methods and Policy Application in the Social Sciences at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and lapowell.auckland@ymail.com.

Is the Individual (1) or the Government (10)
Responsible for Meeting Citizens' Needs?

Medical care for old - 8.6
Income to disabled - 8.45
Medical care for poor - 8.44
Retirement income - 7.73
Income to poor - 7.73
Medical care, for all - 7.56
Nutrition for children - 7.31
Assist univ. students - 7
Employment training - 6.93
Assist work injured - 6.7
Employment, a job - 6.49
Adequate housing - 6.11
Assist unemployed - 6.1
Child care help - 4.79

(Averaged 1-10 scores from 2006, 2008 UWI Leadership & governance national surveys)