SGIA40V15: Public Policy Reform

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• The module will equip students with an advanced understanding of the economic, institutional, and political factors that shape public policy challenges and reforms across diverse national contexts;
• The module will develop students to the analysis of policy failures and how to derive practical solutions by applying lessons from successful reforms and global experiences.

• The module will familiarise students to key policy areas, which could include areas such as: migration, climate, energy, security, health, taxation, state capacity, and corruption, among others.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Through the module students will gain an understanding of:
• The economic, institutional, and political factors that either hinder or facilitate public policy reform efforts;
• Key public policy areas across diverse national contexts spanning developing and developed economies;
• Various specialized approaches for addressing public policy failures across multiple sectors and policy areas.

Subject-specific Skills:

• Students will also develop some subject specific skills, such as:
• Ability to critically analyse the underlying factors contributing to public policy failures and understand the reasons for why these failures persist over time;
• Ability to identify the complex economic, institutional, and political conditions that enable successful public policy reform;
• Ability to conduct independent, in-depth analyses of complex public policy issues and formulate actionable plans to address them.

Key Skills:

• Problem-solving skills: Ability to identify and critically address decision-making failures and policy implementation;
• Research skills: Ability to conduct independent and advanced data- and context-driven research and produce well-structured policy papers;
• Strategic thinking: Ability to design and evaluate comprehensive reform strategies that account for political, economic, and institutional constraints.

• Teaching and learning are through a series of 1-hour lectures and seminars.
• Lectures will familiarize students with latest literature in topics related to the economic, institutional and political factors behind public policy failures and reform options.
• Seminars will allow students to practice applying insights from these topics to a variety of public policy issue areas and contexts including using case-studies.
• Summative assessment is a 2,500-word policy paper that builds upon the formative. Students will identify a public policy failure in a country of their choice, analyse the factors that explain such policy failure, discuss alternative policy options based on lessons learned from other countries, and suggest a policy solution.
• Formative assessment is a 1,000-word mapping exercise of actors and institutions behind a public policy failure. This supports the summative assessment.

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