Flagship course · Economics and policy
Public Policy: Process, Design & Governance in India
Understand how policy gets made and implemented in India, and why it often does not work.
Start module 1What you will be able to do
- Map how the Indian state is structured and how a policy moves from idea to implementation.
- Follow public money from where it comes from to how it is spent, and see why budget numbers rarely match the ground.
- Explain how regulatory bodies actually work and why some reforms succeed while most stall.
About this course
How policy gets made and implemented, and why it often doesn't work
A course covering fiscal federalism, the structure of the Indian state, regulatory governance, political economy of reform, and comparative South Asian policy, grounded in Bardhan, Drèze & Sen, Pritchett, and primary Indian institutional data.
- South Asia Focus
- Research-Backed
Reading list
AI Study CompanionWhy study public policy?
Development practice happens inside policy systems. Practitioners need to understand how those systems work.
India's policy system is among the most complex in the world. A single social programme might be designed by the Union government, funded through a Finance Commission formula, implemented by state bureaucracies, delivered by district officials who are simultaneously accountable to multiple levels of government, monitored by an audit institution that reports to Parliament, and litigated before courts that have their own interpretive frameworks. Practitioners who understand only the programme, but not the system, are operating blind.
This course builds that systemic understanding. It covers the whole system: how the Indian state is structured, how policy moves from idea to implementation, where public money comes from and how it gets spent, how regulatory bodies actually function, and why some reforms succeed while most stall. For the rights-based policy framework that emerged from this system, see our Politics of Aspiration course. Every module draws on Indian evidence in place of generic policy frameworks imported from the West.
"The central issue of development is not whether to have planning or the market, but how to build the state capacity that makes either work."Pranab Bardhan, The Political Economy of Development in India
Papers & Resources
Core texts and institutional sources for this course.
Foundational Texts Bardhan, P. (1998). The Political Economy of Development in India. Oxford University Press. Drèze, J. & Sen, A. (2013). An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions. Princeton University Press. Kapur, D. & Mehta, P.B. (eds.) (2017). Rethinking Public Institutions in India. Oxford University Press. Pritchett, L. (2009). "Is India a Flailing State?" HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series. Chatterjee, P. (2004). The Politics of the Governed. Columbia University Press. Bhagwati, J. & Srinivasan, T.N. (1993). India's Economic Reforms. Report to the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. Shah, M. & Joshi, B.S. (eds.) (2019). Rethinking India's Development. Penguin Random House India. Key Institutional Sources PRS India (prsindia.org): legislative tracking, committee reports, bill summaries CAG of India (cag.gov.in): performance and financial audit reports Finance Commission reports: 14th and 15th FC award documents NIPFP (nipfp.org.in): fiscal federalism and public finance research EPW (epw.in): Economic and Political Weekly for India policy analysis RBI Annual Reports and Handbook of Statistics on Indian Economy