Graduate School of Public Policy

Expected dates of the program

1.      March 18-19, 2021

Program overview

No army has ever won a battle through contracts and regulations but through shared vision and calculated strategies.

Like a battle cry, policy making is an art and a science.

The art of policy making is to find a win-win compromise among varied interests, values, and goals of various stakeholders that wins legitimacy and compliance.

The science of policy making is to identify the most effective and efficient way of achieving policy goals by gathering evidence and using a long-term systems approach.

The program will introduce participants with a comprehensive framework of the policy process. The participants will go through an extensive curriculum that will enable them to comprehend the issues pertinent to policy making ranging from agenda setting to problem analysis, solutions formulation, decision making, implementation, and evaluation. In addition, the participants would learn to appreciate the trade-offs, risks, uncertainty, and complexity in policy making. The program will conclude with a hands-on exercise to apply this learning on a given case study.

Session 1

Description

The Policy Process: Agenda, Values, and Goals

This session focusses on the art of policy making. The session begins with an appreciation of the agenda setting in the context of certain values and goals. The session addresses the questions, such as: What are some of the generalized values across the political systems and organizations? What trade-offs do they pose at certain times? How does a policy maker navigate through the agenda setting where various stakeholders with varied values and interests make the goal setting ever more difficult?  Why and how certain issues become policy problem? And what pathways does a policy maker confront?

Session 2

Description

Formulating and Assessing Workable Solutions

This session moves from the art to the science part of policy making by focusing on three critical questions. First, how to fully comprehend a policy problem from mere observations, complaints, and statements? Second, how to identify and develop various policy solutions? Third, what are the various ways of assessing the probabilities of success?

Session 3

Description

Implementation and Evaluation

In most cases, practitioners and academics alike find policy implementation as the most problematic part of a policy cycle. However, some scholars argue that successful and enthusiastic implementation of ill-conceived policies is as problematic as weak or bad implementation of well thought out policies.

This session focuses on the balancing act between the art and science of implementation and evaluation. The first part of the session mainly exposes the participants to the role of discretion as a tool to create public value without losing accountability. The second part of the session introduces various techniques to monitor and evaluate the achievement of policy goals.

Session 4

Description

The Art and Science of Policy Making: A Case Study

The last session of this course tests the participants skills learned in the course by way of a case study that deals with the real life issues of the policy process from agenda setting to formulation to implementation and evaluation. This exercise offers participants an opportunity to apply their skills on a given case.

Learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of the program, the participants will be able to:

› Understand the importance of political, administrative, and analytical capabilities in shaping policies

› Learn comprehensive and multi-faceted approach to analyzing, developing, implementing, monitoring, evaluating, and communicating public policies

› Acquire and sharpen their technical skills in each stage of the policy processes