Farhad – Policy Translation: Policy Ideas on the Move

The role of State in Development: Core Course GDP at ISS

This year I have contributed the biggest block of lectures in the core course of GDP on Development Policies and Practices. The students now are busy with writing their essays and preparing for their exams. I have started blogging about individual lectures, but then decided that I should rather do a wrap-up of the whole […]

Governance Conditions for Upscaling Urban Water Reuse Schemes

A new research article has been published as part of research activities funded by the POWER project (Political and social awarene…

Lecture 3 Recap: Policy, Policy Work and Policy Success

Today we discussed what a policy is (many things), or is not (e.g. a law), and how to think about it. Essentially the lecture intr…

Authoritarianism

If twenty years ago it was a default that democracy is a good system of governance, then the tables are turned today. In my class …

Lecture 2 Recap: Varieties of State and Bureaucracies

This is a brief recap of the lecture on varieties of state and bureaucracies within the core course in GDP. The issues discussed w…

Lecture 1 Recap on Developmental State (16 Nov)

I am writing this as a quick recap of my first lecture at ISS, within the core course on development. We discussed state and Weber…

A Typology to Study Policy Narratives: Villagers’ Views on Sesan 2 Dam in Cambodia

Studying Narratives in Politics Increasingly stories and narratives are accepted as an important subject of study in politics. Sto…

Internet and Democratisation of Urban Water Governance. NEW PUBLICATION!

Many expected that Internet would create a democratic arena in governance, help hold governments accountable and increase input fr…

New Look! All about Environmental Policy and Development

As you have noticed, the blog got a new look and a new focus. It is now exclusively professional with more attention to public pol…

Announcement: Starting a New Job in September 2018

The time has come to make this news public — I am starting a new exciting job as an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) at th…

Can you put adaptive governance in place? NEW PUBLICATION!

In recent decades, adaptive governance has been advocated for meeting the challenges of unpredictable and uncertain dynamics of So…

Western Political Science Association Conference in San Francisco

Next week from Wednesday to Saturday I will attend the WPSA meeting in San Francisco where I present a paper “Policy Transla…

Advice from Helen Ingram on Being in Academia for Early and Seasoned Scholars

In 2017, a double special issue of the Journal of the Southwest was published that celebrated the career of Dr. Helen Ingram (pict…

Nature, Humans and The Anthropocene (Video in Dutch)

After a long break, here I am posting again. I hope that the most loyal readers still check the website, but no problem — ev…

Scholar Activist or Activist Scholar? Can Scientists Keep Their Values Apart from Research?

A new chapter on the role of reflexivity, positionality and normativity in using ethnography to study policy translation as a proc…

United Nations Global Environmental Outlook 6

Dr. Farhad Mukhtarov has been invited to join the flagship publication of the United Nations Environmental Programme — Global Envi…

Central European University and Academic Freedom

Last week has been unprecedented in the history of the Central European University (CEU) — it was reported in the most prest…

Oxford Handbook on Water Policy and Politics. NEW PUBLICATION!

Finally the chapter “Transfer, Diffusion, Adaptation, and Translation of Water Policy Models” in the Oxford Handbook o…

“Out of Place: A Memoir” by Edward Said — Absolutely Fascinating

It is hard now for me to pinpoint the moment when I became aware of the work of Edward Said and when it entered my personal and in…

Art: Blurring the Boundaries

This paper from 2011 in Nature.com discusses how artists and scientists can benefit each other in new and interesting ways. Above …

Policy Translation: Policy Ideas on the Move

Author: Farhad

A curious mind traveling the world and reflecting on everything.