Comments on: External Professionals in Public Policy-Making – II

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By: Varun Hallikeri

Varun Hallikeri — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 03:51:49 +0000

Dear Malavika,
Thank you for your comment. I will add one more reason to the absence of strong policy think tanks (there are a few of course) in India and their engagement in public policy-making. The lack of funding – more importantly, without any strings attached.
In terms of policy inputs, I would classify think tanks into two types – 1) think tanks which primarily give substantive (subject specific) advice; and 2) think tanks which help with the text of the policy. And, I would say that both are equally important. An input on the text of the policy without a strong knowledge of the subject matter is just as weak as a strong policy input without accurate text to capture it! PRS Legislative Research, in my opinion, is primarily doing the latter. Of course, in every input on the text of a policy there is some substantive subject matter input as well. Recently, Pre-Legislative Briefing Service (www.plbs.in – the website is still under construction) also briefed the Indian Parliament on important Bills. Incidentally, it was started by a group of young lawyers from India. I also happen to be part of this group now.
So, I think that we need external experts in public policy at both these levels. As you rightly mentioned in the beginning of your comment, ‘political will’ is necessary to institutionalize this phenomenon. Going forward, we need to enquire what would be the ideal way (rules of the game) to institutionalize lateral entry of external professionals into the government.
Regards
Varun

By: Malavika Raghavan

Malavika Raghavan — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 15:07:59 +0000

Hi Varun – that was an interesting read!

Lateral hiring is a big change to the existing institutional mechanism which would require immense political will to bring in, I think. The examples you point to have happened mainly at the behest of the person/government in power in our recent past. I would think a more immediate first step to involve external professionals in policy building would be through the inclusion of their views in the policy formation/building process? I know this is already underway for instance, the involvement of Lawyers Collective in the drafting of the AIDS bill a few years ago. I recently attended a talk by someone from the Brookings Institute, who in response to a question from the audience drew a parallel between the “marketplace” for ideas/strategies produced by public policy institutions (mainly research based of course) which exists in the US and the lack of the equivalent in India – both due to the absence of government interest in their views (!!) and also because of the scarcity/relative youth of the organizations that currently exist. To this end, initiatives like the PRS Legislative Research initiative in Delhi seem to be very heartening, and I’d imagine that this is a more immediate way to get people outside the IAS involved in public affairs. Perhaps this is something you have investigated?

Malavika

By: Varun Hallikeri

Varun Hallikeri — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:30:18 +0000

Hi Vikram,
While we do need some rules and standards in recruiting lateral entrants, a standardized selection system might defeat the purpose. Encouraging external professionals to join the government requires the government to shun bureaucratic process. In fact, given that external entrants come diverse backgrounds and their strength is their expert knowledge, it will be difficult to have one universal selection system. Yet, there is no denying that we need to have some guidelines for lateral entry. As I mentioned in my response to Arghya’s comment, the success of how well we use this opportunity depends on political discipline. Else, as you said it can become a system of political patronage. We can certainly learn from the experiences of other countries. This is an area of research for us in the days to come.
Varun

By: Prashant

Prashant — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:23:51 +0000

Hey Halli,

Interesting pieces!

Apart from lateral hiring, I think there is a need to create institutional mechanisms to allow for more general inputs into policy making. Currently the Parliamentary Standing Committees do provide for such input but the real need is for the bureaucracy to create such mechanisms within Ministries. So many times we have instances of Ministries directly introducing Bills in Parliament without even putting them for comments on their websites.

Cheers,
Prashant