Popular Participation in Contentious Policy Areas: Education Policy in Mauritius

Mauritius, like many developing countries, has a need for educational reform. Education is a contentious policy area where it is difficult to build consensus. Mauritius has a well-established procedure, the civic network, for involving the public in policy making, and building state legitimacy and capacity. Yet, in recent attempts at educational reform, the civic network has been avoided. Instead, they have relied upon technocratic policy making which, in political terms, has had limited success. We explain why this happened and conclude that, in Mauritius and similar participatory societies, a participatory policy procedure probably is essential to the successful development and implementation of reforms in contentious policy areas like education.