GCPP
Policy Concepts & Frameworks
Nation, State, Govts, Country -- all mean different things
Sound Economic Reasoning
Implementation
Good communications
Narratives
Politics as a contestation for narrative dominance
Causes
Symbols
Arcs
Images
Stories
RBF
Bardach's 8-fold path
Defining a Problem
Assemble Evidence
Constructing alternatives
Select evaluation criteria
Project outcomes
Confront trade offs
Decide
Tell your story
Writing Analysis
Style Guide
Context appropriateness
Incentives matter
Economic Costs
Look at the margin
MB = MC
Project Management
Transition plan
Feedback loop
Objective negative feedback stabilises the system
How to design for improvement?
Capacity
Effecting Change
Overton Window
The need to be ready with better solutions ahead of time
Stakeholder Management
When is the worst time to try making a friend?
Good policy, bad implementation is a myth
Understanding decision-making of governments
Market Failure, Government Failure, Social Failure
8 things governments do
The international gameboard
"the State has our instincts without our restraints"
Domestic and International affairs have different terms of engagement
There are fundamental differences in how different civilisations see the game-board of international relations.
What do I do with what I have learnt?
Things to Read
Policy Paradox by Deborah Stone
Public Policymaking in India
Strategic Consequences of India's Economic Performance
reform is not always about privatisation or nationalisation. We may prefer privatisation, liberalisation and free-market competition, but the ground realities might not permit maximalist goals.
Indian context of social revolution
Information Age
Radically networked societies pose a challenge to hierarchical States
Information cascades get created easily but they're also easy to break
Moral Panics
Terrorism in the networked age
3 steps for policy thinking (cf. Ajay Shah)
Is there a Market Failure?
Does the proposed intervention address the root cause?
What about the capacity needed?
There's no policy without politics
Politics is the art of the possible
What policy wonks must do?
What citizens must do?
When swimming against the tide
Understand that people have different cognitive maps. Align them.
Why is the status quo the status quo?
MCPF
In service of the Republic
Reflect, Educate, Discuss
India's Tryst with Destiny
Writing
domains and disciplines: don't leave out economics
Pick a research essay you want to write (3000 words)
Do a session on policy for your colleagues
Trace the general equilibrium effects
Low state capacity should change public policy
Isomorphic mimicry
Write a book!
Journal submissions
Structure of Power
Informal
Formal
Economics of Strategy
Difference between military and economic power
Direct and indirect uses of economic power are possible
Power is convertible
A problem in one domain can be addressed through the application of power in another domain
Knowledge is Power
Judge a policy by its consequences not its intentions
Better or worse, not good or bad
Goals: equity, efficiency, effectiveness
Newsletter
Not every unintended consequence is unanticipable
Moral hazards
Regulation becomes overregulation
Rent-seeking
IPPR
theleapjournal
book reviews
Financing -> Positive Externalities
Producing -> Public Goods
Regulating -> Negative Externalities, Market Power, Information Asymmetry
Indian State is too Big and to o Small, both
Narratives Matter
Be on cordial terms with people across the aisle
The Use of Knowledge in Society
Keep engaging on OpenTakshashila
Takshashila PGP
Community Building
Factfulness
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