Critical Conjecture: Citizens’ acuity on Foreign Policy Operationalization in Africa

Citizens critical thinking is not an isolated goal unrelated to other important goals in policy research, policy practice and policy evaluation. Rather, it is a seminal goal which, done well, simultaneously facilitates a rainbow of other ends. It is best conceived, therefore, as the hub around which all other educational ends cluster. It is clear that there is no way to bring critical thinking successfully into instruction across the curriculum with a stand-alone one or two-day workshop. Critical thinking is a difficult thing to define with much precision. Academics across diverse fields such as pedagogy, cognitive psychology and curriculum development each have their own understanding of the term. The theme of the lecture augurs on challenges and opportunities in interfacing pathways for translating research evidence through policy to practice for sustainable citizen engagement. The key research question is what research protocols and models of public management can be deployed to reform the research, policy and practice interface? The finding of the research portend the underpinnings of ideology and agency for the research, policy and practice nexus in Africa, uncertainty and complexity in foreign policy formulation and management. Analytical challenges to the research-policy- practice nexus are generally marked by a tendency to narrow the nexus to the terms and categories of immediate, not very well considered, political and social action and inattention to problems of articulation or production of global systems and process within local politics rather than simply as formal or abstract possibilities.
See paper here or https://www.academia.edu/12226384/Critical_Conjecture_Citizens_acuity_on_Foreign_Policy_Operationalization_in_Africa