A privileged foreigner With reluctance, I accepted the invitation from a senior colleague at my institute to travel to Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, in July to teach a module within the Master’s of Public Administration programme at a sattelite…Continue Reading
Author: Farhad
Assistant Professor at International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague, The Netherlands
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What makes organisations more or less conducive to learning?
What is a learning organisation? It is one that adapts to challenges, that has an internal structure that allows communication and reflection, and that hosts individuals that trust each other enough to experiment and work together. A new open access…Continue Reading
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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…Continue Reading
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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 awareness on water environmental challenges). The latest article is titled “Upscaling Urban Recycled Water Schemes: An Analysis of the Presence…Continue Reading
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Authoritarianism
If twenty years ago it was a default that democracy is a good system of governance, then the tables have turned today. In my class on development the majority of students, most of whom come from the Global South, did…Continue Reading
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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. Stories bring together facts, emotions, fantasies and hopes. Stories are best to stitch together different ways of knowing, from abstract science to…Continue Reading
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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 from citizens to decision-making in the public sector. The time proved different. We live in the age of fake news, social media…Continue Reading
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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 policy, development, governance, the environment and science. The blog aims to become a “go-to” place for…Continue Reading
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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 the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) in September 2018. ISS is located…Continue Reading
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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 Social-ecological Systems (SES) (Folke, 2006; Huitema et al., 2009). Scholars ascribe a multitude of virtues to adaptive governance, such as, for example,…Continue Reading
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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 Translation: a Review of Current Research”. The programme of the conference is very exciting with many interesting panels in…Continue Reading
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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 (pictured) as a scholar, mentor and colleague. The special issue contains a number of essays written by world-class…Continue Reading
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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 — even those who have forgotten about its existence are likely to come back soon as exciting…Continue Reading
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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 process is now available in the form of proofs. The final version will be published in the book “Translation in…Continue Reading
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United Nations Global Environmental Outlook 6
Dr. Farhad Mukhtarov has been invited to join the flagship publication of the United Nations Environmental Programme — Global Environmental Outlook 6 as a lead author. He will work in a exciting team of scholars and practitioners from all over…Continue Reading
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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 prestigious media outlets such as The Guardian, The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Financial Times and many others. The…Continue Reading
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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 on Water Politics and Policy is out online. The book itself will be printed next year.
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“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 intellectual radars so to speak. (If interested in other posts on Edward Said,…Continue Reading
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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 all, the complex, rewarding and at times frustrating experiences of interdisciplinary collaborations is at display through such innovative work.…Continue Reading
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Public Policy Bits: Social Constructivism and Trump
Trump’s presidency proves one point – that social constructivism explains the world much better than realism, positivism or whatever. Propaganda, framing of messages, providing false hopes, marketing messages to a desperate constituency — these all proved to be more important…Continue Reading