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field of public affairs today is increasingly complex. The traditionally
clear distinction between policy formation and policy implementation
has been blurred: goals do not command action, nor are they independent
of the actor-systems that implement proposed policies. Indeed,
the inner workings of these actor-systems often determine which
policy – whatever its formal content -- becomes “on
the ground.” Public policy is no longer the exclusive affair
of public officials working in the service of government in well-defined
areas. Growing interdependencies among a wide range of actors
– public, private, governmental and non-governmental, local,
national and transnational – shape our societies. And the
traditional distinction between international and domestic policies
has been overtaken by the interrelated effects of globalization,
emerging technologies and issue-areas. These create a new, more
fluid, multi-scaled policy environment. Though the nation-state
remains the key level of political sovereignty and formal decision-making,
the collective action processes that shape what can be done at
any given level unfold at many different territorial scales and
through far-flung networks. |
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The MPA at Sciences Po seeks to understand this new and evolving
policy environment and train our students to act effectively within
it. Effective policy leaders need to comprehend why policies are
created, why some are good and others are bad, why good policies
can fail and bad ones can succeed, and how to act strategically
in order to improve them.
To do this, they require an interdisciplinary background in
applied, action-oriented social science, as well as training
in leadership, strategy and ethics.
Our three central engagements are therefore:
a) To emphasize equally the three disciplines of economics,
politics, and sociology. In drawing from the Anglo-American
perspective, we seek to understand the hard economic constraints,
welfare effects, and incentives that affect our ability to develop
and implement policies, as well as their sometimes unanticipated
consequences. In drawing from the European, and now global perspective,
the MPA endeavors to understand the comparative strengths and
weaknesses of different societal approaches, rules and legal
systems in meeting policy goals in varied contexts across the
globe. We examine the comparative political economy of policy,
in concert with the roles of administration and complex actor-networks
in shaping public policy possibilities;
b) To place importance on leadership and institutional entrepreneurship
in the development of innovative policies. Leaders or institutional
entrepreneurs are strategic actors within public and private
organizations, which are the links between rules and politics
and the specifics of implementing policies “on the ground.”
Hence, in this program we stress strategic action within organizations
and organizational systems (institutions);
c) To develop students’ analytic skills and diagnostic
capacities in order to enable them to develop policies that
are tailored to the specific structure of the respective policy
fields. Our teaching incorporates a strong reflexive component;
is not designed to provide abstract solutions to general problems.
By instilling in our graduates a critical sense and comparative
vision of policy choices and their consequences, by teaching
them to solve problems using sophisticated analytical tools,
by encouraging them to think dynamically, comparatively, and
systematically at multi-levels, we hope to promote a new vision
of policymaking and change in a global environment.
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PROFILES
Hitomi Kubo
Japanese American student
Policy research associate and consultant
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