FAQ. About "Public Policy Analysis" Study Track

The purpose of this interview is to find out more about the professor and about the program. What this program is about and why it is so attractive to all students.

Uldanov Artem

Senior Lecturer of School of Politics and Governance

Good afternoon, Artem Alexandrovich, the purpose of our interview is to find out more about You, more about the program you teach and to understand your goals for the future, what this program is about and why it is so attractive to students.

Could you please describe what this program is about?

Let me make a correction right away, since I can’t answer for the entire program. We have three tracks, they are different and initially it was a program that tried to combine modern trends in the development of political science and economic science, and the famous Oxford program was taken as a guide. I am not be responsible for the entire program - it is Mikhail Grigorievich Mironyuk who is an academic supervisor. I can only tell you about the «Public Policy Analysis» track and about some general things.

As far as I know, the program is not only an adaptation of the Oxford program, but it is also implemented at our university at the master's level, which is unique in its way, since at Oxford University it was implemented at the bachelor's level. This raises a question : as an interdisciplinary education, how much does this correlate with the standards of a master's degree, as a specialized education?

That's right, the program was originally made with an emphasis on this, since interdisciplinary education is popular in modern science. Specialists who receive it are in demand on the labor market. When we talk about analysts, about people who work in consulting,  they are in demand, because they are able to conduct interdisciplinary research and can integrate their knowledge, synthesize and offer some innovative ideas. 
At the master's level, there is a more advanced approach to methods and theories. That is the approach - the students of our program, regardless of the track, receive a good preparation in the field of quantitative data analysis. Students master basic programming, learn how to visualize this data and how to properly integrate it into research.

Our track - Public Policy Analysis - is more applied in its nature. Our main concentration is applied solutions, it is a realistic analysis of what is happening and the formulation of adequate proposals on how something can be improved, corrected, or at least not made worse. There are different courses at the track which are focused on diverse policy sectors.

For example I teach a course called “Key seminar” - this is a specific discipline that helps students to navigate and understand how to prepare for research work and what is expected of them. This discipline, at least in my understanding, complements the research seminar, while the latter is focused on things that are more tied to the preparation of coursework and master's thesis. The Key seminar is focused on more general aspects, for instance, the development of individual student trajectories. 
Nowadays there are many opportunities for students to choose courses that are not directly included in the track’s Study plan, what is taught not by us, but by some other HSE departments - these are inter-campus courses, the so-called MAGOLEGO, these are courses that, for example, are offered at the faculty of the Moscow campus. 
In addition, in the first year, together with Ksenia Leonidovna Gerasimova, I also teach a discipline called Foundations of Public Policy, it is a discipline that helps students to understand the main theoretical approaches that exist within the framework of public policy analysis and decision-making processes.
Another course I teach together with Sergey Anatolyevich Parkhomenko, called Regulation and Reform Policy it is focused on introducing students to regulation approach, concepts of public administration and how this can be done at different levels, how centralized and decentralized regulation can be, and what aspects need to be given special attention when reforms take place. 
I also teach a few classes of Comparative Social Policy. It is about educational policy and labor policy, the policy on the labor market and employment.

Please tell us about your research interests. How are you developing in these directions?

My research are mostly interdisciplinary. Firstly, I have always been interested in the topics of public participation in politics and its various formats.  It can be both structured, generally accepted, conventional, as well as expressed in some non-standard forms, protests and other related things. It is interesting for me to see how citizens or civil society try to influence political decision-making, interact with state authorities and what comes out of such interactions. This is a relevant topic, especially in Russia, because the relationship between the authorities and non-governmental actors has always been very difficult.

There has always been a feeling that something is going wrong, that there is lack of something in these relations - either they are too regulated, or they are too limited, or there is no trust. All these things certainly have an impact on the quality of those policies that are being developed, because it is hard to produce quality policy without proper feedback and  clear understanding of the public interest. It is interesting to answer questions like: to what extent these problems are addressed, to what extent they are correctly interpreted and understood, and to what extent the authorities are ready to hear the citizens, and the citizens are ready and understand how they should communicate with the authorities.
In addition, thanks to our foreign colleagues, we quite seriously plunged into the topic of policy narratives, into the topic of how the construction of some agendas , some events affects the general perception of politics and the implementation of this policy. We are following the theory, a theoretical framework called Narrative Policy Framework. This is a fairly new invention, only since the 2010s it has existed in some relatively finished version. The theory still has quite a few bottlenecks, it is developing and we are trying to see, using the example of Russia, how applicable it is, how well it works and what are those narratives that different coalitions in Russia use to promote their positions and their political agenda.

And the third interest for me are aspects related to educational policy in developing countries. First of all, how educational institutions work at different levels, to what extent they fulfill their function as agents of development. This is because the connection between education and economic development are quite often emphasized, but unfortunately, in many situations it is not possible to ensure that education really helps the country. This does not happen for quite objective reasons – due to the globalization of the labor market, when highly qualified personnel travel to other countries where there are better working conditions. We are considering educational policies, including those aimed at supporting the most vulnerable groups in society, some ethnic minorities, refugees, migrants, etc.
Also, to some extent, I have always been interested on an equal footing with the participation of citizens in politics – in the role of various think tanks, the role of political consultants in policy making process. How the knowledge from academy and experts is translated into decisions taken by various government bodies.

I think all students are interested in - What knowledge should students of the program already have? And what skills can they develop on this track?

First of all, I would say that the student should have at least a general understanding of social sciences. I'm not talking specifically about political science, although knowledge of political theory and political philosophy is certainly welcome, but rather the general principles of how social sciences function, how knowledge is formed in this area. 
Of course, this should be interesting for the student, that is, if topics related to politics, decision-making, political institutions are not interesting, then I don’t see much point in studying on this track. 
Thirdly, the knowledge of  English is important. If you cannot freely express your thoughts in English, then of course it will be difficult to study here. 

Do you think it is necessary for a bachelor’s graduate to have any specific research interests when applying for this master’s program? Or can he form it in the process of studying here based on the courses of the program?

 It is good when one has a strong interest in something, but in general, the fact that interests change is quite normal. Our task, among other things, is to help students eventually formulate the topic in such a way that it would be interesting for them to develop , so that the preparation of a master's thesis or term paper does not turn into a torment.

And please tell us about where you studied? What are your qualifications? Why did you decide to teach at the Higher School of Economics on this program? Did you want to teach somewhere else or do you want to in the future?

I am a native HSE, because I started my bachelor's degree at the St. Petersburg HSE, when a program in political science had just been opened there. In fact, I am a political science programs graduate. After completing my bachelor’s degree, I entered the master's program here in Moscow - Political Analysis and Public Policy via Olympiad. When I was admitted - it was not yet fully English program. We only had several courses taught in English,  yet  most of the education was in Russian.

So, it means, that you were studying on the same program where you teach now?

To some extent, taking into account that it is a specific track now. I was always interested in research, so I entered political science as a bachelor’s student, because I was intrigued by the reasons for the occurrence of  certain processes. For example, why some kind of policy does not work? Why the administrative reform is stalling? Why are there protests? Why can’t citizens find a common language with the authorities? Why regulation is changing in this way? In order to find answers to these questions, I actually entered political science.

In my undergraduate studies, I was interested in a lot of different things. My thesis was about the specifics of conflicts in postmodern society, and this is a rather complicated topic, because there is a question about the “postmodern state” itself, what is it? Then, when I came here, I started thinking more about some specific things, but at the same time, for example, as part of the development of civil society, I was interested in aspects of interaction between Russia and the EU in the OSCE format. I went to an OSCE event, was present there as a delegate from the organization. Later I developed this topic and managed to study for half a year in Italy at the University of Bologna, though not in a political science profile, but more in law.

So, you did the exchange program, right?

Yes, it was such an interesting story, because I went to professor Sirena Lucia Rossi. She was my coordinator and now she works in the European Commission. Back then she was in charge of the postgraduate law school at the University of Bologna and she is a very good specialist in European law, but for me this topic was new. I knew something, but while I was going to courses and studying literature, I realized that, of course, delving so deeply into the law is not for me. Nevertheless, some aspects of regulation and interaction of the EU member states with each other captured my curiosity, such as, for example, how disagreements are resolved. Since the principle of consensus is adopted there, everyone must agree in order to make some decision, despite the fact that there are very few exclusive areas where the EU has exclusive competences. However all sorts of decisions and directives of the European Commission, some kind of coordination at the level of the European Parliament is also an interesting process. I was intrigued to what extent citizens have the opportunity to influence all this and what are the objective limitations of civic participation. I was researching such a thing as the European Citizens' Initiative.
Then, when our Political Analysis and Public Policy program became entirely in English, I, as a person who studied abroad, was called to  become a part of the teaching staff. I began to read part of the research seminar, help with a course called «Education and Innovation Policy», and somehow gradually got involved in this process. I like to teach, first of all, in master’s programs, because there is an opportunity to exchange opinions. I never welcome when professors comes to class and give a lecture for three hours, and everyone sits listening to him. This is one of the possible options, but I prefer when there is some kind of dialogue, when we can discuss something on the spot, when students have questions and disagreements. Social sciences do not pretend to be the absolute truth. There are different points of view and our task and duty is to discuss these different points, take into account opinions and consider the problem from different angles. Students sometimes ask questions that I can think about - why didn’t it come to my head, that there are really contradictions here, or vice versa, similarities, it looks quite reasonable. 
 

What advice can you give to students to be just as successful at studying and resting? It often happens that the brain is so loaded that it simply refuses to perceive outside world .

First of all, I would say that there is no need to put everything off until the last minute - a problem that many people suffer from, including myself sometimes. For example, if you need to get acquainted with some literature, you need to make a plan. You see that this is a small academic article of 15 pages, you can roughly imagine how long it will take to read it, take notes, write out some key points, read additional material, if something in the article is not clear, and you should always have time for this. Simply speaking, if you’re given two weeks for a task, don’t start it three days before the deadline. This is because, firstly, absolutely anything can happen in these three days and in the end you will not have time to read. Secondly, if you postpone everything all the time, then psychologically you will consider any reading as something tiresome, which you have to do through force.

Therefore, planning is important! It is useful not to postpone everything for later, and, of course, you need to give yourself time to rest. If you focus only on your studies, this leads to burnout and very strong emotional tension and stress. It is reasonable to build the right attitude - I try to do everything on time.  If I don’t have time to do something, it is always possible to discuss this issue, agree in advance with the teacher. If you understand that you don’t have time, the key word here is in advance, because this gives you time to reach out to the professor.

Thank You very much for this fruitful interview. I wish you all the best!

 

Written by  Valentina Voronina