Policy change – Policy Translation: Guide to Interpretive Approaches to Governance

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 determines what we think and if anything, the government now knowns everything about it. But […]

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 World Politics” edited by Tobias Burger and Alejandro Esguerra.

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.

Time for a Bioeconomy? NEW PUBLICATION!

Good news! “Away from fossil-fuels and toward a bioeconomy: Knowledge versatility for public policy?” is finally out

Political and Ethical Aspects of Fieldwork. NEW PUBLICATION!

A new article written by Martin de Jong, Robin Pierce and myself is now out in Environment and Planning A, “Political and ethical aspects in the ethnography of policy translation: Research experiences from Turkey and China”. You can download the author copy here. Abstract A currently burgeoning literature in planning and policy studies engages with […]

Transfer, Diffusion, Adaptation and Translation of Water Policy Model. NEW PUBLICATION!

On Friday July 01, I am giving a talk at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS. The details are in the announcement. The paper is to appear later this year and will be found on Publications page. Synopsis: Intensive cross-border movement of policy models is ubiquitous in the water sector. Examples include Integrated […]

New Paper on Security in the Mekong River Basin. NEW PUBLICATION!

After three years of writing and revising, our paper on various ways of security being framed in the Mekong River Commission has come to light in International Relations journal Globalizations. Here one may read it. This is yet another wonderful collaboration with Andrea Gerlak with whom it is pure pleasure to work and write. The key […]

Public Policy Bits: Democracy in Crisis? What Role for Public Policy?

We live in the times of democracy in crisis. This is obvious not only in authoritarian countries, but also in traditionally democratic societies such as the US and The Netherlands. Those that are between the worlds, such as Hungary and other Eastern European countries, democracy is a patient in the emergency room. A prominent public […]

BBC: Big Tobacco Paying Bribes

I was recently taking breakfast with two friends in a quiet district of Amsterdam. While enjoying our salmon on omelet, and conversing in Dutch, we updated each other on our lives. A friend of my friend had a new job, he became a manager of a pharmaceutical company which works with plants. His job is […]

Workshop on “Translation in World Politics” at Kate Hamburger Kolleg, Duisburg, Germany

Last week, on October 08-09, I took part in a workshop at the University of Duisburg’s Kate Hamburger Kolleg (Centre for Global Cooperation Research) named “Translation in World Politics”. It was very pleasing to see the ideas of policy translation making headway in other disciplines, and now also in International Relations and World Politics. I […]

On Being an Academic and a Public Intellectual

Edward Said is primarily known for this views on Palestine and Israel and for this book “Orientalism” which defined and inspired the post-colonial studies, as discussed before on this blog. He, however, also left a dozens if not hundreds of essays and interviews — the goldmine for anyone interested in the issues of politics, literature, […]

Crafting or Designing Socio-Ecological Systems? NEW PUBLICATION!

Finally, our Special Issue of Environmental Science & Policy is online, and you can enjoy the articles. You can read our editorial about the issue here, and the article I wrote with colleagues on water user associations in the region here.

What Makes Ideas Spread?

There is too much choice at the moment, the tyranny of choice. The only way to make sure that your idea, bad or good, becomes influential, you have to make sure this idea is different from all other ideas! It may be crazy, it may be risky-looking, but this is really the “safe” way to […]

Oxford Bibliographies: Great Resource for Students and Researchers!

Energy Security and Water Security Farhad Mukhtarov (ADA University, Azerbaijan) and Aleh Cherp (Central European University, Hungary; Lund University, Sweden), with essential assistance from a graduate ADAU student Richard Sarpong, published 2 articles in Oxford Bibliographies, Oxford University Press. One article is about Energy Security — the concept that commands great policy attention nowadays, from […]

Public Policy Bits: Check Blog by Professor Cairney

However, one website offers a good take on many of those concepts, and only in 1000 words! It is the blog written by Paul Cairney and can be found here. This is excellent for students of public policy and people with general interest. So are you taking a public policy class and you have to […]

ADA Faculty Debate on Charlie Hebdo

Friday, 13 March at 4pm in the Large Auditorium of ADA University I am going to debate freedom of speech versus religious sensitivities. This is open to all ADA members, especially students interested in the subject. All are welcome!

Institutional Design in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. NEW PUBLICATION!

The Journal of Environmental Science & Policy will feature in early 2015 an article co-authored by Farhad Mukhtarov, Svenja Fox, Nozila Mukhamedova and Kai Wegerich. This article is an attempt to resolve the tensions between the need for institutional reform and learning in this process and the paramount importance of the policy context in determining […]

The Water Bomb of Ireland is Ready to Come Off

This post shows how water is a slow-ticking bomb in the European policy domain, that many more protests and political fights are set to happen in the years to come in that area. Europe is used to good life with unlimited resources, such as water; the reality, alas, is different, and the people are not […]

New Book!!! “River Basin Management in the Twenty-first Century: Understanding People and Place”

Good news for those interested in water resources management and policy! A new book is published by CRC Press, part of Taylor & Francis Group, which is called “River Basin Management in the Twenty-first Century: Understanding People and Place” edited by Victor Squires, Hugh Milner, and Katherine Daniell. It has a rich collection of various […]

Public Policy Bits: Ways of Knowing Public Policy

Farhad Mukhtarov and Andrea Gerlak have just published an article in Policy Sciences, a well-respected political science journal, on Ways of Knowing and Integrated Water Resources Management. In this article, the authorss came up with the argument that there are 3 ways of knowing reality, and public policy for that matter, which they named prescriptive, discursive […]

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Policy Translation: Guide to Interpretive Approaches to Governance

Category: Policy change