Publications
BSC faculty, fellows, and affiliates regularly publish research in a wide range of academic and policy venues. These include books, book chapters, working papers, articles, cases, and reports. In addition, we have hundreds of blog posts that you can read.
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Featured BookBuilding State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action
This book provides evidence of the capability shortfalls that currently exist in many countries, identifies capability traps that hold many governments back, and describes a process that can be used to escape these traps called PDIA (Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation).
Featured Publications
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Tackling Learning Poverty in Sierra Leone’s Education System through the Lens of the PDIA
Guest blog by Irina Bilyalova, Orlando Carvajal, Vaiba Flomo, and Sonali Verma We were four students brought together by a shared interest in solving real-world problems. Three from the Harvard Kennedy School and one from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. One of us was from the United States; three of us were…
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Case: Using PDIA to Transform Waste Management in Amman
In early 2022, the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) faced a growing waste crisis. Given its population of 4.5 million people generating approximately 3,000 tons of solid municipal waste daily, half of Jordan’s total, the city’s rapid growth had significantly outpaced its waste management infrastructure. In response to this challenge, a remarkable two-year transformation using Problem-Driven…
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Can Outsiders Help Build State Capability? Lessons from Ted Lasso
Gaps between potential and performance are common in states across the globe. This paper argues that these gaps represent differences in state capability, and compares Ted Lasso to how outside actors can impact that capability.
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Kindness as a Relational Capability in Collaborative Work
This paper explores the relationship between kindness and increased collaboration. Researchers used a field experiment to test acts of kindness against the level of team effectiveness.
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Can Outsiders Help Build State Capability? Lessons from Ted Lasso
Gaps between potential and performance are common in states across the globe. This paper argues that these gaps represent differences in state capability, and compares Ted Lasso to how outside actors can impact that capability.
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Development as Capability Building
This paper distinguishes between ordinary capability and adaptive capability. It argues that development depends on strengthening the foundations of adaptive capability, from which new institutions, routines, and established capabilities emerge.
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Making Problem-Driven Governance Possible: The Foundations of Problem-Driven Capability
Authors highlight the key foundational aspects of governance that uphold problem-driven capability.
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Process and Implementation Evaluations: A Primer
Authors investigate six different types of process and implementation evaluations and highlight their strengths and weaknesses to better comprehend successful interventions.
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Beyond Solutions: Capability, Development Frontiers, and the Process of Good Change
This work underlines the value of building capability and empowering communities by using India’s reduction in maternal mortality as a comparison point.
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Whose Success Counts? How Policy Roles Rewrite the Rules of “Success”
Understanding more about how actors in different parts of the policy process prioritize success is essential in understanding the multidimensional nature of policy success.
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Malawi’s Cashgate Scandal
Malawi’s anti-corruption reforms centered on implementing IFMIS, but repeated attempts from 1995 – 2012 faced technical failures, mismanagement, and political resistance, culminating in the 2013 “Cashgate” scandal that exposed major system flaws. Despite renewed efforts to replace IFMIS with a more secure version, experts warned that real reform requires addressing deeper political and cultural challenges,…
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Finding Entry Points and Sequencing Adaptive Work
The mayor of Blueville implemented a new recycling policy initiative after being elected, however, the amount of plastic waste on city streets remained, partly because few constituents collected and delivered recyclables. This case details the team’s response to this issue and their process in identifying entry points and sequencing the work.
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Facilitating Learning and Discovery-oriented Industrial Policy in Albania
A case narrative recounting a problem-driven learning and discovery-oriented approach undertaken to reinvigorate a struggling sector in Albania in 2014.