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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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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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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Public policy actors view success differently, and it matters
Different leaders in the policy world have different visions of success. This paper proves that success naturally comes when actors agree on long-term impact.
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Managing for Motivation as Public Performance Improvement Strategy in Education & Far Beyond
A paper exploring the idea that management is successful when employees are empowered, monitored less, and “mission motivated.”
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Getting Real about Unknowns in Complex Policy Work
Policies are often fraught with ‘unknowns’ that cannot be captured in passive planning processes.
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Cambodia’s Land Management and Administration Project
This working paper examines the case of the World Bank supporting a project in Cambodia aimed at mass titling land. It raises important questions about the ethics of interventions, donors influence, and domestic politics.
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How do governments get great?
This paper answers the question “How do governments get great?” by exploring the multidimensionality of successful leadership. It dives into two theories, solution and leader driven change, and problem driven iterative adaptation.