Rethinking public affairs education for a globalized world
Hong Kong is faced with a challenging public policy environment characterized by an ineffective system of governance and challenging public policy problems including lead contamination in our water, outrageously expensive housing, an ageing population with no prospects of replacement, an overburdened public health system, and so forth. These issues and others are not unique to Hong Kong but characterize the megacities the world over. Only the details vary from place to place.
The persistence of these problems is the result of many factors including ineffective governance arrangements, lack of political will, path dependence – we are living out the results of choices made decades ago in a different incentive environment – and failure to understand causal linkages. Public affairs education and research can help us to address some of these problems by deepening our understanding of the complexities of governance in particular environments and helping us to better understand causal linkages (why we are where we are) and to improve diagnostics.
We now operate in a globalized world which means that public affairs education which focuses on solutions should draw on the best international practice. Key issues for a globalized context include: What competencies are necessary for policy makers in a globalized world? Undoubtedly they need expert knowledge of how similar problems are addressed elsewhere; how to integrate technical knowledge with a nuanced understanding of culture and context. How does globalization impact modes of teaching and learning? Using smart technology policy professionals should be interacting with peers in various parts of the world working on similar problems.
In a globalized context how do providers of public affairs education understand the changing needs of their stakeholders, especially prospective students to ensure that public affairs education is aligned with societal needs? Finally, how best to bring local perspectives to global problems and for us, to bring an Asian perspective to public affairs education traditionally dominated by the West. This requires dialogue and comparison. Public governance in the East and West is often built on very different constitutional bases, meanings of legitimacy, and governing principles. How best to understand the implications of these differences for practice and designing solutions.
One approach to addressing some of these challenges is to offer joint programs of research and teaching that bring together the best of East and West. To this end the University of Hong Kong and the University of Southern California are launching a new Master of Global Public Policy designed specifically for policy professionals in a globalized environment. The program seeks to bring together experienced professionals from the public, private, and third sectors (including civil servants, employees of state-owned enterprises, those working in government liaison positions in private companies, employees of multi-lateral organizations such as the World Bank, OECD, and various development banks, and international NGOs), recruited globally, to focus on solutions to common public policy problems.
Such a program should focus on key issues such as urbanization, environmental sustainability, social justice, global development, and financial sustainability, and produce solutions that address problems holistically, and that are based on collaboration across sectors.