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
Paper: 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.
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.
Blog: 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.
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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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Why Does Hirschmanian Development Remain Mired on the Margins? Because Implementation (and Reform) Really is ‘a Long Voyage of Discovery’
In this paper, Michael Woolcock explores the complexity of Hirschman’s views on public policy and development.
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Escaping Capability Traps through Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA)
Sometimes reforms are surface level– when governments fail to actually alter the way policy works, not just what it looks like on paper, improvement isn’t possible. This working paper highlights this issue along with capability traps.