Policymaking and elite monopoly
“If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life…If…
Economic policymaking
One casualty of the fall of the Berlin Wall in the 1990s has been ‘economic policy’. It does not mean that ‘Economic policy’ is not required or it has become…
Ad hoc policymaking
ASSUME a policy is ‘bad’ to begin with. Implemented consistently, it will likely get some groups to favour it, and some stakeholders to trust it. Thus, counter-intuitively, even if a…
Internet policymaking
MUCH of 2020 has been marred by uncertainty regarding the state of social media in Pakistan. With surprise new rules in the absence of consultation or transparency, blanket bans on…
Policymaking under the PTI
With the formation of an 18-member Economic Advisory Council (EAC) comprising eminent economists, Imran Khan’s government will not be short of economic policymaking expertise that was sorely lacking under former…
National security: disastrous policymaking
Input will dictate output – almost always. So what is the input that is going into our national security and foreign policymaking that has produced such a bungled output? Let’s…
Art of policymaking
They say when you really love something the whole universe conspires to help you achieve it. As a nation, had we love for true democracy or good governance we would…
Policymaking with blindfolds
Earlier this year officials at the federal Ministry of Finance and the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) had a disagreement. The disagreement was due to a rebasing (changing the base…
Where Imran went wrong
After holding a mammoth gathering in Lahore in 2011, former prime minister Imran Khan had created an impression that his party believed in a revolutionary political ideology that would transform…
Truly unlucky
There is a growing recognition amongst economists and political scientists that in many developing countries, an externally guided development effort has not been as effective as hoped. The fact is,…
