News and views from the Blavatnik School of Government community 
In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. A famous example discussed in the past few months has been that of the United States being considered de jure the most prepared country in the world in terms of detecting and responding rapidly to and mitigating […]
The outbreak of COVID-19 has brought the policymaking process into sharp focus, highlighting the complex and interconnected challenges on how to take decisive action in the face of so many ‘unknown unknowns’. As countries around the world move towards easing lockdown measures, governments have struggled with the unintended consequences of […]
Falling trust in government is a problem. It is a particular problem among the young. The Pew Research Center recently released data showing that US adults aged between 18 and 29 reported 22% less confidence in the military than those aged 50+, 18% less in the police, 6% less in […]
When I first suggested the topic of this blog to a friend, he said it was an oxymoron. Design and government? Thinking and government? If design thinking is all about putting people first, many do not believe that policies really put people first. The design thinking process involves many steps […]
As a fresh faced civil servant on her first posting to Bangalore in 2003, it thrilled me to bits to read the motivational etching on the Vidhana Soudha, Bengaluru’s postcard monument that houses the State Legislature. It says in native Kannada first: Sarkarada kelasa Devara Kelasa and below it, the […]
The United States must increase infrastructure investments and improve infrastructure quality and efficiency in order to best serve its citizens. Ranked ninth out of 137 in infrastructure quality on the Global Competitiveness Index of the World Economic Forum, the U.S. may seem to be excelling in the area of infrastructure. […]
It seems reasonable to assume that progressive policies help each other along. That, for example, programmes to improve transparency and lower corruption go hand in hand with efforts to encourage more women to stand for political office. But is this assumption justified? And what if the opposite were sometimes the […]
The ‘National Football League’ (NFL) – the premier body of American Football – is a behemoth organisation with its own constitution, by-laws and processes for governing the sport. But recent events have cast shadows over the integrity of the organisation. In this blog post, I argue that two recent player […]