MA P&PPG

Programme [POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLICY AND GOVERNANCE]

(2021-2023 Batch onwards)

PROGRAMME SPECIFIC OUTCOMES: MA PROGRAMME (POLITICS AND PUBLIC POLICY AND GOVERNANCE)

The programme specific objective (PSO) of the MA stream in Public Policy and Governance is mainly to equip students to take up a wide range of positions including teaching and research in the frontier areas of PoliticalScience, Public Policy and International Relations. The scope of public policy has expanded duringthe last five decades as a result of the intervention of the state in the realm of society and economy across many nations. The locus of public policy then shifted to the role of governments, international institutions and non-governmental organizations of over decades. However, the global dynamics has changed considerably since the 1990s. Some even suggested that the nation-state’s ability to determine effective national policy has withered with the growth of economic globalisation. The global stage rendered nations less potent as policy-making instruments. The principal task of public policy was then only to maintain the competitiveness of the nation, promote its export industries, and make its resources attractive to investors. Many nations operated under the auspices of the Structural Adjustment Programmes of key global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The emergence of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) further stimulated thinking on new arenas of governance. Further, cultural animosities have collided with the sheer turbulence of globalisation. Terrorism and militarism have become primary global issues. Indeed, globalisation and the sheer pace of social change present a formidable demand on practitioners and students of public policy as the world entered the 21st century.

The MA programme, through the course objectives delineated in the syllabus, realise the PSOs. The courses are envisaged to introduce students to the broad fields of theoretical as well as empirical questions encompassed by Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations. The students should identify, explain, and apply key concepts and terms underlying Public Policy and Governance, grasping public policy and Governance as unfolding dynamics in aninterdisciplinary mode; the student should demonstrate a grasp of the global environment in both Public Policy and Governance. Students should address questions such as: What is public policy? How broad is its scope? How does public policy involve and impact us? Does the public policy making process work effectively? How is the public policy agenda set? Who and what havebeen ignored? What is power? Who has it and who does not? How is public policy formulated? What institutions and actors make policy? What are the limits of rational analysis? How is policy ultimately authorized? How is public policy implemented? How big and intrusive are government bureaucracies? How can the administration of programmes be improved? Who pays for public policy? What is the public policy budget? How are taxes raised and lowered and for whom? What was the recent tax reduction all about? What fiscal tools are used to steer national and global economies? How do we assess the effects of public policy? How is it working? How do we know? Who are the winners and the losers? In sum, the post graduate programme in Public Policy and Governance provides ample opportunities for academic as well as policy initiatives within an interdisciplinary mode.

THE COURSE OBJECTIVES- LEARNING OUTCOMES AND EVALUATIONS:

The courses that comprise the specific Masters level programmes offered at the school are attuned in their course objectives towards envisaged towards outcomes that can be contextually evaluated. Though these start from acquisitions of basic knowledge of the components in each stream, viz. International Relations and Politics, Public Policy and Governance as well as Human Rights, they make sense of the specific matters therein and apply such knowledge to address themes delineated in course modules.

The specific course objectives in each specific programme feed into the larger programme outcomes. This is done also by the interdisciplinary engagements as well as bringing in emergent fields of study as mentioned in the over-arching programme structure. In going beyond paradigms of national international into global, critiquing development, understanding regionalities, bringing in newer domains like ecologies, gender, migrations or urbanisation, the course objectives entail higher learning outcomes that evaluate existing frames in each domain and come out with reevaluations and constructive suggestions in seminars, working papers, and workshops.

The Evaluations:

Following the outcome based educational methods, evaluations can no more be singular in frame and unreflective in form. So, a course on West Asian regional context, will be evaluated on terms and technique different from another one on ethnography and yet another one on international theory. These evaluations, though start from basic learning objectives, goes into critical analysis and evaluations that gets stressed in exam. The school feels a need to engage creatively with the scenarios that come under each of its specific programmes, and so the workshops, and seminar as well as occasional student papers focus on the evaluative and constructive outcomes and will be course dependent. This is indicated along with the respective course syllabus.

SYLLABUS

OBE MA PPG 2022