How Is the UAE’s Happiness and Wellbeing Policy enacted within the Higher Education sector and Workplace? A Policy Implementation Study. Omneya Omar January 2021 This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University, UK. 1 “The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture i Declaration This thesis results entirely from my own work and has not been offered previously for any other degree or diploma. Signature ii Abstract This thesis reports the findings of a multi-methods policy implementation study into the intentions, enactment, and implementation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) National Program of Happiness and Wellbeing. The study explores the Declaration of Happiness and Positivity as both policy and discourse, and its findings contribute to the existing literature by presenting a holistic view of happiness policy and the impact its discourses have had on UAE society. This study's outcomes are derived from a multi-method approach of Critical Discourse Analysis, Qualitative Media Analysis, and Content Analysis. The results of these methods represent the influences, intentions, and enactment of the UAE happiness policy. Examining the role of policy in happiness initiatives from multiple perspectives is essential as it offers insight into the problems associated with large scale initiatives and highlights the vital role that policy can have in their successful implementation. Furthermore, this research's findings indicate that using a phenomenological approach to policy creation and enactment can lead to a significant implementation gap between policy intentions and outcomes. The study points to the need for explicit foundational knowledge into the meaning of happiness and steps to achieve it to avoid creative non-implementation. The multi-perspective nature of this policy research is significant as it lays a foundation for understanding policy at a nuanced level. This work explicitly provides a view of how policy is implemented iii and enacted within the Arab state, offering an idea into an area of the world that is thus far, vastly underrepresented in policy research. iv Acknowledgements This journey has been quite a long one, and for many times I have been haunted by negative thoughts and challenges that could have terminated this journey in its earlier stages. But the support and love I had from my surroundings were tremendous to keep me going, and for this, I express my sincere gratitude and appreciation. I wish to express my sincere appreciation to my supervisor, Professor Malcolm Tight, who has convincingly guided and encouraged me to be up to the goal when the road got tough. Without his persistent help, the goal of this project would not have been realized. I also wish to extend my appreciation to my initial supervisor - who took me through the proposal stage and first chapters before she seeks a new chapter at a different university – Dr Kirsty Finn. I wish to acknowledge the support and great love of my family, my husband, Tamer; my children, Nour and Yehya; for accepting many days me staying late at the library and missing out fabulous moments with them. To my father and mother who always empowered me by their words: "you can do it!", and they are proud of every step I pursue. They all kept me going on and this work would not have been possible without their support. v Table of Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................ 3 1.1 Introduction........................................................................................................... 3 1.2 The Motivation for the study .................................................................................. 6 1.3 Aim of the study .................................................................................................... 7 1.4 Research questions ................................................................................................ 8 1.5 Research approach ................................................................................................. 9 1.6 Thesis outline....................................................................................................... 10 2 Contextual Background: The UAE’s Happiness and Positivity National Program . 13 2.1 Introduction......................................................................................................... 13 2.2 Background on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) .................................................... 13 2.3 Uncovering the UAE National Program of Happiness and Wellbeing (NPHW) ......... 14 2.3.1 Introducing the UAE Declaration of Happiness and Positivity ............................................... 16 2.3.2 Happiness Policies and Programs across the UAE .................................................................. 17 2.4 The Manifestation of the UAE National Program of Happiness and Wellbeing (NPHW) across the country .............................................................................................. 23 2.4.1 Happiness Summits and Research across the UAE ................................................................. 23 2.4.2 Happiness across the Higher Education sector ...................................................................... 25 2.4.3 Happiness across the Government and Private Sector .......................................................... 27 2.5 Chapter summary ................................................................................................ 30 3 Indicative Literature: The Happiness Science ...................................................... 31 vi 3.1 Introduction......................................................................................................... 31 3.2 Why Happiness Science Research?........................................................................ 31 3.3 Defining Happiness and the Progression of Happiness research ............................. 32 3.3.1 Operationalising’ Happiness’ term: ........................................................................................ 32 3.3.2 Development of the discipline ................................................................................................ 35 3.4 The Value of Promoting Happiness Science for Public Policy .................................. 39 3.4.1 Value in Higher Education....................................................................................................... 40 3.4.2 Value in Productivity/Business ............................................................................................... 44 3.5 Policymakers and the Implementation of Happiness Policy ................................... 47 3.5.1 The Economics of Happiness .................................................................................................. 47 3.5.2 The Politics of Happiness: Government interventions ........................................................... 53 3.6 Happiness Worldwide Initiatives .......................................................................... 62 3.6.1 The Kingdom of Bhutan .......................................................................................................... 63 3.6.2 The United Kingdom ............................................................................................................... 64 3.6.3 Summary of Worldwide initiatives ......................................................................................... 66 3.7 Is Happiness the ultimate solution? ...................................................................... 68 3.7.1 Critique of the UAE Happiness Policy ..................................................................................... 68 3.7.2 Critique of Worldwide Happiness & Positivity Movements ................................................... 69 3.8 Theses written about Happiness Studies ............................................................... 71 3.9 Chapter summary ................................................................................................ 74 4 Theoretical Framework: Policy Implementation Studies ..................................... 76 4.1 Introduction......................................................................................................... 76 4.2 Defining Policy ..................................................................................................... 76 vii 4.3 Policy as Discourse ............................................................................................... 80 4.4 Policy and Governance ......................................................................................... 84 4.5 Policy Creation ..................................................................................................... 85 4.6 Policy Enactment ................................................................................................. 86 4.6.1 Policy Intentions ..................................................................................................................... 86 4.6.2 Policy Outcomes ....................................................................................................................