Sample Statement of Purpose for Masters in Public Policy (MPP)
India is a place of immense challenges and opportunities. On the one hand, limited state capacity in a country with a burgeoning population results in unmet needs for basic amenities such as healthcare, education, clean water, and clean air. On the other hand, the same large population, which is mostly young, can be harnessed and channeled into a productive workforce.
In my lifetime alone, in addition to the everyday battles for access to basic provisions, I have seen my fellow countrymen brave wars, floods, earthquakes, and economic and political meltdowns with their characteristic resilience. The state, however, has often fallen short of the expectations of the people.
As part of the same state machinery, in my role as a career civil servant in India’s Administrative Service, I have gained important insights into the nature and extent of this state dysfunction. Here, I am primarily concerned with the executive and administrative capacity of the state in terms of service delivery and governance.
In my nine years of diverse experience of public service in federal government and different provincial governments, I have often had to implement policies that lack theoretical foundation, intellectual roots, or economic rigor. Over the period of time, I have realized that this is a norm rather than an aberration.
Our policy interventions lack systematic measurement, institutionalized analysis of evidence, rigorous cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness regimes, or any meaningful feedback loops. This leads to a limited executive capacity of the state and poor outcomes. Furthermore, the already limited capacity of the state is further clogged up by regulatory overload.
I have been Assistant Commissioner in many subdivisions and one of my tasks was to enforce the prices of essential commodities as notified by the Government. At the end of each month, the government releases a performance ranking of Assistant Commissioners on the basis of the fines imposed and the arrests made. This entire process, from establishing prices to enforcing them and evaluating performance, shows a lack of economic understanding of government interventions and market failures. Moreover, it clogs up our already limited capacity for basic service delivery at the grass-root level.
Similarly, I have personally experienced that our actions against air pollution meet with little success because they arerandom, discretionary, and purely coercive in nature. No careful analysis of incentive structures is carried out to envisage a more sustainable policy framework to deal with air pollution.
My experience of enforcing the government’s frequent ban on plastic bags has also provided similar lessons. These bans fail because the policy lacks a holistic approach. It targets retailers and end consumers without accounting for the intricacies of the supply chain or the feasibility of alternatives to plastic bags.
These are only a few of many examples from my public service experience that speak to the need for an improved and institutionalized policy approach based on the essentials of data, measurement, and economics. I am interested in filling this important policy gap. This is a policy area of interest to me as it has a direct bearing on enhancing the executive and administrative capacity of the state. This is the reason I plan to pursue a Master in Public Policy.
I am drawn to Stanford’s Master in Public Policy (MPP) program for a myriad of reasons that directly resonate with my goals and background in civil service. The MPP program offers courses such as “Program and Policy Evaluation” and “Energy Policy Analysis” which can sharpen my understanding of nuanced policy analysis, fostering my ability to craft policies grounded in empirical realities back in India.
I am particularly eager to learn from esteemed faculty such as Professor Bruce Owen, whose extensive knowledge in economics and public policy can provide new perspectives in policy interventions. Leveraging Stanford’s close relationships with influential policy incubators, like the Stanford Policy Lab and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), I see a path for myself working on substantial field projects, even potentially collaborating with government agencies and NGOs to develop policies with a deeper understanding of market dynamics and regulatory frameworks.
Post my MPP, Stanford’s rich network could potentially facilitate opportunities to collaborate with organizations such as the World Bank or UNESCO, allowing me to bring a global perspective to India’s policymaking landscape. Through this program, I envision myself leveraging the collaborative Stanford environment to foster connections and acquire skills that would be instrumental in introducing a data-driven, analytical approach to policy design and implementation in India’s public sector.
I plan to engage rigorously with the theory, develop an understanding of the intersection of policy, politics, and economics, learn the quantitative tools in economics and statistics to make better sense of data and learn to use evidence in decision-making. I also hope to learn from the varied experiences of my teachers and colleagues and discuss some of the intractable policy questions I have come across in my experience as a public policy practitioner in India.
I am currently at a mid-career point. This is the right time for me to bring my field experiences into an academic setting and put them to the test. After the degree program, I plan to return to my country well-equipped with the knowledge and skillset to make a difference in the policy design, service delivery, and governance landscape of India.
My professional responsibilities as a civil servant provide me with opportunities to be an influencer and change-maker in my country. My leadership goal is to spearhead a movement within India’s public sector to introduce intellectual and scientific traditions into public policy. In doing so, I aspire to play an instrumental role in making our state capacity responsive to the basic needs of the people, enabling them to realize their true potential.