#80 One Year, 200 Thousand Words Later...
Anticipating the Unintended turns 1 today.
80 editions and over 200,000 words later, we are here.
Truth be told, we have surprised ourselves.
The fun parts of running a newsletter are limited. There’s the pleasure of following news stories, reading op-eds, policy papers, and books hoping to find something interesting that can go into the next edition. And then there’s the delight in publishing the edition, receiving feedback, and finding new readers who subscribe to it.
Everything in between is a chore.
The blank page that stares back at you when you start. The frustration when that interesting idea or a compelling argument you had in mind for the next edition is meh when you write about it. The great desire to practice the art of clear writing in public policy – sans jargons, convoluted arguments or complex phrasing – and failing more often than succeeding. And, finally, writing that piece that has logical consistency and a flow that takes the reader along. We struggle with this in every edition and, often, it shows. Yet, we persist.
In a way, this act of putting together an edition is a metaphor for our view on the practice of public policy. No! Don’t groan at another metaphor.
The fun parts are similar. Thinking about a problem, researching about it, and getting it all together in your mind. Or the part after a policy has been implemented where you critique it, tweak it or make case studies about it. It is that middle that’s difficult. The ability to think through the consequences of a policy, anticipate the unintended and then implement it at scale. We have often written on how this middle is where policy fails in India. But that’s easier said than done like we find out every week writing this newsletter. It gets better only through discipline and practice.
For this anniversary edition, we have something different for you. Instead of us yak yaking all over again, we sent two sets of questions: one to public policy scholars on our subscriber list and the other to a few awesome readers who have been with us throughout our journey. Some of them were kind enough to send in their responses. We share their perspectives below.
Five Rapid-Fire Questions On Public Policy In India
We received responses of Ajay Shah (AS), Economist, Editor of The Leap Blog, Co-author of In Service of the Republic, Nitin Pai (NP), Director of The Takshashila Institution, and Lt Gen Prakash Menon (GPM), Director of Strategic Studies at the Takshashila Institution and author of The Strategy Trap.
Q1. An example of one of the better policies implemented in India
AS: Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana. [Our note: More on this policy here]
NP: Deregulation of telecommunications in 1998-2000 [Our note: a paper here]
GPM: Aadhar — providing a digital identity. [Our note: read this study]
Q2. Good economics can also be good politics if ...
AS: public expenditures on public goods actually generate outcomes, in which case *all* voters benefit.
NP: people would be more sensitive to the common absolute gains than relative gains for their identity group.
Q3. An example of one of the not so good policies that India can't rid itself of
AS: Foreign Contributions Regulation Act. There is no market failure and no case for government intervention. (I'm an optimist! We can and must and will get rid of all not-so-good policies!)
NP: Inability to extend the tax net to wealthier people regardless of their occupation.
GPM: Reservations for jobs.
Q4. The most common mistake made in policymaking in India
AS: Amassing more coercive power with state agencies will somehow improve state outcomes.
NP: Band-aid & paracetamol solutions to alleviate the symptoms
GPM: Not visualising and catering for the implementation process.
Q5. The last book you read that changed your mind
AS: China’s Future by David Shambaugh
NP and GPM: Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman
Readers’ ThoughtSpace
We posed this question to readers who have been a part of this journey since it began in Oct 2019:
Would it be possible for you to write a small note on the importance of public policy awareness in India? Why is it important for more of us to engage with policy issues?
We received responses of Gautam John, Director of Strategy at Nilekani Philanthropies and Hamsini Hariharan, Host of the States of Anarchy Podcast.
Gautam writes:
“In the hazy past, when in-person meetings were possible, I found myself in front of an audience talking about the famous story of Wolves and Yellowstone National Park [Can large carnivores change streams via a trophic cascade?]. For those few readers who might not be familiar - it tracks the story of reintroducing wolves as predators into the Yellowstone ecosystem and the cascading impact it had on the entire ecology and landscape culminating in the rejuvenation of rivers. Imagine my surprise, and horror, when I discovered that the most common takeaway was the understanding that if we want to revive rivers, we need to introduce wolves.
I was aghast and wanted to understand why this thinking is so common. Either it isn't easy to see or our minds invisibl-ise the complex nature of many relationships, incentives and interactions in large and diverse ecosystems. So we see emergent outcomes, healthier rivers, as being caused by introducing wolves. And thus, if you want to rejuvenate a river, introduce wolves.
This illustrates a significant challenge that most popular public policy understanding writing suffers. It reduces public policy to a series of prescriptions rather than engaging with the complexity of spheres in which public policy operates. It does not explore the divergent interests in the complex web of actors and the varied incentives.
And that's where Anticipating the Unintended comes into their own. We shouldn't see like a state, but we do need to understand how states see. They engage with the complexity of society, of governments and of markets and to distil all of that in ways that are simple for readers to understand. Never simplistic or reductionist. I learn so much from every edition and believe that it is criminal for it to be free.”
Hamsini writes:
What does it mean for us to be good citizens? Vote once in five years, pay our taxes, follow the Constitution's laws, and stand for the national anthem? Policy awareness needs to be on the top of that list. Indians need to engage with policy not only because it will improve our understanding of the world, but also because it will change Indian governance.
Let's take a Foucauldian view of power. One way to define policy awareness is the knowledge of how public policy is designed, along with the political contexts in which it is intended. Policy awareness means that we, as citizens, become active stakeholders in our government's policymaking. The 18th-century philosopher, Joseph de Maistre, said that every nation gets the government it deserves. While policy awareness may not translate to public action, it leads to increased citizen engagement and forces the government to be more transparent and forthcoming. It allows the Indian people to hold policymakers accountable for their actions and ensure that their policies are truly representative of the nation. Indians boast that we are the world’s largest democracy, but democracies are often chaotic.
Lack of policy awareness conversely leads to a world where the news cycle running on sensationalism can capture the public mindset instead of focusing on issues of national importance. A Platonian maxim holds that “The quality of the state depends on the kind of education that the members (groups) of the state receive.” We can extend this education to beyond mere literacy to policy awareness. Across the world, misinformation is strife, and policy awareness would mean going beyond relying on our echo chambers to inform our views of the world. It would mean that we try to understand opposing stances on issues and acknowledge our own cognitive biases. It would improve public dialogue on contentious issues and set the agenda for policymakers.
At the same time, policy awareness needs to be separated from political awareness, which can be defined as the "the knowledge and understanding of the political process and political issues which enables people to perform their roles as citizens effectively." Policy awareness extends beyond politics and often requires us to engage with specialized topics, often outside our niche (or interests).
We don’t need to be policy-aware only for the sake of the good of the nation. On an individual level, policy awareness allows citizens to make better decisions in their own lives. As rational beings, policy awareness is critical for us to make life decisions, be it where we invest our savings, where we choose to live and die, and what battles we choose to fight every day. After all, the personal is political, and politics is the result of policy.
Our deep gratitude to all these wonderful people.
Some Personal Favourites
We want to share our favourite editions. It is a bit indulgent perhaps. Guess we can be that once in a year.
#39: Dispelling the Many Myths of Our Mythical Readers Part #1
#23: How to Think About the Indian State
#14: Today’s Deficits are Tomorrow’s Tax Hikes
#52: Trade Surplus, Truth Deficit
#35: Market: How Much - How Little - Is Within Its Power
#64: The Quest for Narrative Dominance
#37: Kerala vs Gujarat Models: History Matters
Thank you for reading.