MA in Public Policy and Governance
Bringing together the fields of public policy and governance to advance our understanding of public problem-solving in India.
Introduction
Understanding complex public problems and designing effective solutions for them are challenging tasks. A public problem may be a garbage crisis in the neighbourhood, potholes on public roads, or the role of black money in elections. In a country like India, these problems accumulate and feed into larger issues, ranging from crises in the health sector, public infrastructure or even corruption.
We take a novel approach and bring together the fields of public policy and governance to advance our understanding of how to solve problems. We make it our work to build a practice around the ways in which we as a nation can understand and talk about issues of public interest. Our interest is in implementing effective solutions and design actions around our collective endeavours as a human society.
We help you become critical and analytical about the challenges in public affairs, and train you to develop meaningful and equitable solutions to contemporary problems.
A blend of theory and practice
We offer you a well-grounded understanding of the theoretical frameworks, practical challenges and institutional arrangements that are important to a holistic understanding of public policy. You will develop the ability to critically analyse ideas and practices that shape public policy programmes and policies. We help you identify and frame governance problems and create programmatic solutions for impactful research.
Work with experienced faculty
Our faculty and research staff are engaged in research and policy projects with government and non-governmental agencies and in projects concerning areas of public policy and governance and bring their extensive experience to the classroom.
Association with Azim Premji Foundation
You will benefit from working in close association with Azim Premji Foundation and its work with six state governments in India in shaping and implementing policies and programmes at the grassroots.
We hope that this course will help you become a reflective practitioner of public affairs.
The interdisciplinary nature of our programme helps you approach a problem from several vantage points. You will be able to:
- Work with government, inter-governmental organisations and organisations working with the government in regulatory roles.
- Work with civil society organisations, development organisations, non-governmental organisations and social entrepreneurships engaged in evaluation, monitoring and other aspects of programme operations.
- Carry out research and advocacy on issues of public policy and governance.
- Pursue academics through an advanced academic degree.
Course structure
This programme is a mixture of lectures, seminars, workshops and field visits. You will have to take on independent study and write a dissertation. Make sure you do some additional reading and prepare for discussions and your projects.
We offer you a foundational understanding of key ideas in public policy and the Indian state and an appreciation of the four pillars – the Constitution, state authority, the economy, and public policy.
You will develop a rigorous understanding of the essential values upon which the Indian Constitution was designed. We take you through the form and manner of the distribution of resources by the government, the use of political authority by the Indian state and the fundamentals of public policy in India. We adopt an unorthodox and interdisciplinary approach in our courses.
Politics and Democracy in India
Core
How is political authority constituted and legitimated in a society?
Public Policy in India
Core
What do public policy and public administration in India consist of?
Causal and Inferential Methods
Core
The statistical techniques employed in policy and governance studies.
Everyday State in India
Core
How does the State work on the ground?
The State and Governance in India
Core
How does the state exercise its legitimacy across different societal interests?
Methods for Evaluation and Impact Assessment
Core
Understand research designs and methods used for making causal inferences about public policy and governance interventions.
Constitutional Foundations of State Institutions
Core
How is the Indian state is structured and constrained?
Policy Analysis
Core
An overview of the role of a policy analyst and the concepts and skills necessary for an understanding of public policies across domains.
The State, Market and Economy
Core
This course introduces you to the lexicon, concepts, and arguments around economic ideas, covering microeconomics, macroeconomics, development economics and public economics.
Values and Ethics in Public Affairs
Core
Connect public policy advocacy with fundamental ethical and moral ideas.
Programme Evaluation
Core
How are programmes and policies evaluated for their process and impact?
Qualitative Approaches to Analysing Public Policy
Core
A survey of qualitative approaches informed by social science methods used and applied in generic policy domains in advocacy, analysis and evaluation.
Our elective courses help you deepen your knowledge in the core sectors of public policy and governance. You will understand sectoral practices and contexts and how things work in the real world. We offer perspectives from the inside world of policy and governance and from the view of practitioners in the field. We offer courses in urban governance, water and sanitation, land governance, social enterprise, development finance, legal system reform, technology and citizenship.
Environment Governance, Management and Conflict
Elective
What are the arrangements involved in natural resource management?
Financial and Budget Analysis for Public Policy
Elective
The fundamentals of finances for public policy and governance.
Urban Governance in India
Elective
The study of cities for public policy and governance.
Strategic Planning and Performance Management for Public and Non-Profit Organisations
Elective
Looking at the function of organisations that are public and not-profit and evaluating their performance.
State Transformation and Theories of Governance
Elective
A society-centric approach to survey the changes brought about in governance.
Financial and Budget Analysis for Public Policy
Elective
Fundamentals of financial accounting, financial reporting, financial analysis and government budgeting.
Environmental Politics and Policy
Elective
An overview and analysis of the conceptual approaches to the environment.
Practice in the fields of law, governance and policy is a complex mechanism that brings together several disciplinary domains. The field is shaped by social, cultural, political, religious and other points of views, and none of these perspectives is absolute. In India, with weakly coordinated institutional arrangements, limited political agendas, socio-economic disparities, the condition is more complicated. Practical problems do not have perfect solutions.
In this section of your course work, we animate what you learn in the classroom by taking you the contexts and places you study to learn how policy happens in practice. You will describe contemporary public problems through exposure to grounded field experience. Your ability to analyse and apply concepts for framing interventions in policies will emerge from empirical methods of conducting research. As a result of this field practice, you will develop a clear view of the challenges faced by institutions and organisations engaged in the practice of law and policy.
Law and Policy Hub Group Project
Field
Apply knowledge from the classroom learning onto field practice and vice versa.
Summer Internship in Law and Public Policy
Field
A six-week internship between Semester 02 and 03.
Winter Field Project in Law and Public Policy
Field
An eight-week internship between Semester 03 and 04.
Why did Esperanto emerge as a language? What goes into the making of a documentary film? Ever wondered whether bamboo is a grass, food, or a tool for furniture? Learn the history and evolution of cinema as art forms, watch film noir, or appreciate the music of Indian films. Walk through the city to experience it with a new lens or understand the built world around us in a class on architecture for non-architects to. Talk about Indian classical dance in dialogue with a dancer; what wrought Carnatic music into the form it exists in today? Listen to music, read science fiction, star gaze, write poetry, or explore the city in which you live.
In our open courses, you can explore one or two courses outside of your main progamme. You will work with visiting faculty: artists, writers and experts in the field spanning literature, the fine arts, cinema, science, and history. We offer creative courses for you to choose from every semester. Courses are updated each year.
Total 72 credits
