| Policy Dialectics

This is a seminar course in the third trimester after students have learnt the basic elements of public policy (first trimester) and its analysis (second trimester).The key premise is to communicate the complexity of thought and action while approaching public problems. In the first part of the course students will be introduced to the idea of dialectics and why policy problems require a dialectical approach while seeking solutions. Then, each student will be allocated to a group which picks up a contemporary problem. How different scholars have reflected on these problems (in constitutional assembly debates, public discussion, political discourses) will be deliberated in the groups. Each student in the group will take a disciplinary stand (economics, law, politics, sociology) while attempting to solve the problem. At least one student will take sectoral approach which brings the technical expertise required to solve the problem. Beyond reading the papers from the respective disciplines that has solved similar problem elsewhere, students will develop a rubric to approach the problem in interdisciplinary manner in team work.

The first session would be an introductory lecture on dialectics with a movie viewing of “12 Angry Men” to delineate the practice of dialectics. The next set of six sessions in the group work will be focused on reading different papers on the key thematic of the group. After these six sessions, all the groups come together in a plenary session (it is a marked session for each group). In the second set of six sessions, method of dialogue will be in the form of debates around contemporary topics emerging from the first set of six sessions. For the final session, all groups will meet again for a marked session of sharing with larger class.