Public Policy and Management (PPM)
For this specialization we advise you to register in the Major Governance, Policy and Political Economy (GPPE), but other Majors also give access to this specialization.
The specialization Public Policy and Management is for participants who want to concentrate on policy design and policy implementation. It prepares students to contribute effectively in policy preparation and implementation processes, especially in developing and transitional countries. The specialization examines public policy analysis - formulation, design, implementation and evaluation- in depth. It adds a policy focused perspective to issues of governance at local, national and international levels, paying attention to the diverse range of circumstances in which participants will work.
The specialization is a long-established and popular study area at ISS, taught by experienced staff who together are expert in a wide range of themes, countries and approaches.
Specialization courses
The specialization consists of two obligatory courses of 8 ECs each and a research paper:
Policy Analysis and Design
Public Sector Organizations, Management and Reforms
TEACHING STAFF
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Sylvia I. Bergh (a Swedish national) is Senior Lecturer in Development Management and Governance at the ISS. She completed her D.Phil. thesis in Development Studies at the University of Oxford in 2008, focusing on decentralisation and local governance in Morocco. Previously, she worked at the World Bank, both in the President's Office in Washington D.C. and in the Morocco Country Office. Her academic background includes a strong focus on the international relations and political economy of the Middle East/North Africa region. More recently her interests have expanded to include international migration issues. She has relevant consultancy experience, including for UNIFEM (evaluating the Gender Responsive Budgeting Program in Morocco) and Dutch NGOs (on democracy promotion in Morocco). Her areas of interest include mainly decentralisation and local governance, capacity building and institutional sustainability, participatory approaches to rural development, natural resources management and collective action (water governance in particular), project implementation and evaluation, and migration and developmental impact of remittances.
For more information, see: www.iss.nl/bergh
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Des Gasper is currently a professor in the areas of human development, development ethics and public policy. He studied economics, development studies, and policy analysis at the universities of Cambridge and East Anglia in Britain; and worked through the 1980s in Southern Africa, as a government planning officer in Botswana and a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe. Since then he has taught at ISS. He is interested both in broad theoretical issues in public policy and development studies – including in the study of the language, argumentation, rhetoric and value-choices in policy discourse – and in practical methods and applications of these themes, including in various aspects of policy planning and evaluation. His earlier research was on rural development; he now focuses on international migration, climate change, and human security, combined with his continuing interests in development ethics and policy discourse. He has worked in Bangladesh, Botswana, India, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and has given invited lectures also in Brazil, Britain, China, Colombia, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Latvia, Mexico, Norway, Thailand, Spain, and the USA.
For more information, see: www.iss.nl/gasper
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Sunil Tankha is senior lecturer in Public Policy and Management. Sunil Tankha is Indian. He received his PhD in Economic Development from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his work focuses on strategic planning for economic development, infrastructure development and planning, and public sector reforms. He has worked in over 10 countries, including Brazil, India, and the United States, and has consulted for various international organizations. He speaks seven languages and has lived on four continents.
For more information, see: www.iss.nl/tankha
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Joop de Wit is a social anthropologist (PhD Free University Amsterdam) teaching as Senior Lecturer Public Policy and Development Management at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University, The Netherlands. Before joining ISS in 2000, he worked at the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies (I.H.S.) in Rotterdam. He also worked with the Netherlands Ministry for Development Cooperation first as the local Program Advisor of an urban poverty project in Bangalore, India, and subsequently as Institutional Development Advisor at the Ministry in The Hague.
His regional interest is in Asia (India, Vietnam and Indonesia) but he also worked in Namibia, Ethiopia and Surinam. His publications include books, articles and chapters on his key research interests of urban poverty alleviation, urban (local) governance and politics, decentralization, and community dynamics and (informal) community-government interfaces. A recent book is a co-edited volume ‘New Forms of Governance in Urban India: Shifts, Models, Networks and Contestations (with Isa Baud, Sage).
At ISS, Joop de Wit is a member of the ISS Major Program Governance, Policy and Political Economy, and of two specialisation tracks: ‘Public Policy and Management’ and ‘Local Development Strategies’. He leads courses on ‘Local Governance, Politics and Management’ and ‘States, Societies and the Politics of Development’, and is engaged in other courses both at ISS and as part of capacity development projects in various developing countries.
For more information, see www.iss.nl/dewit
Public Policy and Management courses
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Policy Analysis and Design
The first course is Policy Analysis and Design, which looks at the preparation and making of choices for public action, and centres on a practical policy analysis project/simulation. It aims to make participants more thoughtful, effective, and equitable players in policy analysis work by giving: more understanding of concepts, theory, techniques/tools and processes; more skills in using these ideas and in contributing as a policy actor; and more awareness of the value-aspects and value-choices in policy analysis. It is integrated through the Policy Analysis Project.
Public Sector Organizations, Management and Reforms
The second course is Public Sector Organizations, Management and Reforms, which provides an understanding of organisational structures and dynamics of policy implementation in multi-stakeholder public processes, and further skills and tools for effective action. It investigates the practices of public sector institutions and sister organizations, policy implementation and public sector reform, especially in the delivery of public services. The course relates theories of policy making and implementation to the pressures in complex institutional contexts, characterized often by weak organisations and governance systems, and where budgets, capacity and staff commitment can be problematic.
photos: Jan Banning from the Series "Bureaucratics"
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Evaluation of Development Policy, Programmes and Projects
As a relevant optional course not formally part of the specialization, participants may be interested to take the course ‘Evaluation of Development Policy, Programmes and Projects’.
Research paper
In the research paper work, a student can take up any substantive topic, since public policy/management covers all areas, provided the research explores and applies ideas and methods from the fields of public policy analysis and public management.
Reading suggestions:
E. Bardach (2009, 3rd edition). A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis. Sage.
H. Colebatch (2009, 3rd edition). Policy. Open University Press.
E. Ferlie et al. (eds., 2005). The Oxford Handbook of Public Management. Oxford University Press.
F. Fischer (1995). Evaluating Public Policy. University of Chicago Press.
J. Forester (2009). Dealing with Differences. Oxford University Press.
M. Hajer, H. Wagenaar (eds., 2003). Deliberative Policy Analysis. Cambridge University Press.
R. Klitgaard (1988). Controlling Corruption. University of California Press.
G. Morgan. (1997). Images of Organization, 2nd edition. London: Sage Publications.
D. Mosse (2004) “Is good policy unimplementable? Reflections on the ethnography of aid policy and practice” Development and Change 35 (4, 2004) : 639-671
D. Yanow (2000). Conducting Interpretive Policy Analysis. Sage.
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