The following interview originally appeared in The Hindu on 20 March 2017. The full text can be accessed here.
LinkedIn used its data to produce a list of the top
skills from 2016, that will get you hired this year. The ranking is based on
recruiter and employer activity over the past year. Number 10 on the list is
‘Public Policy and International Relations’. In this conversation with Dhruva
Jaishankar, Fellow, Foreign Policy, at Brookings India in New Delhi, gives us
some insights into the field, picking up the skill, and career outlook.
What is public policy and international relations?
Public policy examines how government policies —
including laws, rules, norms, and their implementation — affect the well-being
of states, societies, and individuals. It encompasses a wide range of issues
from economic and social policies, to security and foreign policy.
International relations (IR) can be considered a subset of public policy that
has a transnational element, and might include international security, trade,
international political economy, diplomatic history, and global governance.
The study of public policy draws from many disciplines,
including political science, law, economics, history, management, statistics,
psychology, sociology, security studies, urban planning, and communications.
Programmes for students in India to achieve skills in
this field?
In Europe, schools for government administrators have a
longer history, such as Sciences Po in France, which began in the late 19th
century. In the United States, Princeton, Harvard, and Georgetown founded some
of the earliest schools of public administration and international affairs in
the early 20th century, with more such schools being created in North America
and Europe after World War II.
In India, most education and training programmes have
been oriented towards people already in government service, including those at
the Indian Institute of Public Administration and Foreign Service Institute.
Today, the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, the
Indian School of Business (ISB), the O.P. Jindal Global University, and the
Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) offer courses that address some
aspects of public policy or international relations. Unlike many other
disciplines, such as law, business, or engineering, there are no standard
degrees or professional qualifications required to embark upon a career in
public policy or IR.
Career outlook in India?
Government and public administration in India is
dominated by career civil service officers, who do not necessarily require an
academic background in public policy, but enter the government by taking the
Civil Services Examination. There are limited career opportunities outside the
government, including in public policy institutes (think tanks). This is
because public policy think tanks are generally small, few, and — as non-profit
organisations — poorly-resourced.
But increasingly, the private sector — both Indian
corporates and multinationals — is seeking recruits with public policy
backgrounds to work as consultants or government affairs specialists. Media
professionals can also benefit from a public policy background to better
understand some of the issues that they cover. Finally, public policy
professionals can help train and teach others in academic settings — this
usually requires receiving a doctorate in public policy or a related field,
such as political science or economics.