A student's notes and fishbone diagram along with a copy of the PDIA toolkit and the BSC book

Publications

BSC faculty, fellows, and affiliates regularly publish research in a wide range of academic and policy venues.

These include books, book chapters, working papers, articles, cases, and reports. In addition, we have over 660 blog posts that you can read.

Featured Book

Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, Action

Matt Andrews, Lant Pritchett and Michael Woolcock
Oxford University Press, 2017

This book provides evidence of the capability shortfalls that currently exist in many countries, identifies capability traps that hold many governments back, and describes a process that can be used to escape these traps called PDIA (Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation).

Building State Capability: Evidence, Analysis, and Action book cover

Featured Publications

A woman working in a shoe factory

Facilitating learning and discovery-oriented industrial policy in Albania

2023 | working paper

Matt Andrews and Peter Harrington

A case narrative recounting a problem-driven learning and discovery-oriented approach undertaken to reinvigorate a struggling sector in Albania in 2014.

Decorative: Question marks with a hand holding a pen next to them

Getting Real about Unknowns in Complex Policy Work

2022 | Working paper & podcast

Matt Andrews

Policies are often fraught with ‘unknowns’ that cannot be captured in passive planning processes.

Decorative: Golden compass pointing to the word "Mission"

Managing for Motivation as a Public Performance Improvement Strategy

2022 | Working paper & podcast

Dan Honig

A managerial approach focused on supporting employees to exercise judgement is better than conventional approaches.

Young boy writing in a notebook at school desk with sudents in the background

Funda Wande through PDIA

2022 | INSIGHT NOTE & podcast

Salimah Samji and Mansi Kapoor

This South African case showcases a flexible and iterative learning approach to improving educational outcomes.

Image of the step-by-step PDIA process diagram from the Dubai Policy Review article

Implementing Policies with Impact

2020 | dubai policy review article

Matt Andrews and Salimah Samji

What capabilities are needed to go from successfully delivering policy products to fostering real policy impact?

Interior of a government building filled with people

How Do Governments Get Great?

2013 | Working paper

Matt Andrews

How can governments play a role in their country, region, and city to facilitate or lead new pathways for progress?