Democracy, Politics and Institutions (DPI) Concentration

Students in DPI study how people, communities, cities, states, and countries make decisions involving public policy and democratic governance, doing so from a variety of perspectives: political, sociological, historical, economic, cultural, and ethical.

As DPI faculty, our ultimate goal is to move beyond simply identifying the best possible policy choices for a given problem in the abstract, to understanding and anticipating how policy options play out in the real world.

• How and why do we get the policy outcomes we get?
• What governance-related choices do people make under differing circumstances?
• Importantly, how can we incentivize policymaking processes to yield the best feasible outcomes?
• What lessons can we learn from the past that will help us make better choices today?
• How should we think about the ethical implications of those choices, whether made by individuals, groups, or organizations? How do those choices affect the foundations of democratic governance, from the rule of law to democratic legitimacy?

These are some of the critical questions that DPI faculty and students explore.

DPI students learn a variety of practical analytic skills and techniques including ethnographic, historical, and case study research; game theoretic modeling; quantitative analysis; applications of machine learning, AI, and data analytic approaches; and experiments in the lab and in the field.

The skills you will learn as a DPI student are essential to solving real-world public policy problems. These include:

1. Policy design in context: What are the best policy options in a given socio-political context? Who are the actors – individuals, groups, politicians, businesses – who have stakes in the policy? How do their respective incentives intersect and potentially differ?
2. Thinking politically: Which policy options are most politically viable and most likely to be selected? How can differences between stakeholders be negotiated?
3. Political strategy: How is policy implemented and maintained?
4. Acting ethically: Is a policy ethically appropriate and what are its implications. How do we strike an appropriate balance between efficiency and fairness? And how does that balance differ in differing circumstances? Ultimately, why do governing structures and processes sometimes yield unsatisfying or unfair policy outcomes, despite the best intentions of the actors involved?

DPI courses will provide you with the skills necessary to identify the best policy options and, just as importantly, how to navigate real-world politics to get the outcome you want. DPI will prepare you to recognize and adapt to the political incentives and constraints that determine important outcomes. In other words, DPI instructors teach students how to design policies that can succeed within a real-world political context.

DPI students, through the Communications Program, also learn critical skills such as public speaking, opinion writing, and communicating during a crisis—all essential for communicating policy options to key stakeholders.

A number of centers and initiatives operate within DPI, giving you opportunities to engage with real-world political, historical, and area studies research. These include (but are not limited to):

• Ash Center for Democratic Governance & Innovation
• Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy
• Bloomberg Center for Cities
• Institute of Politics
• Taubman Center for State and Local Government
• Women and Public Policy Program

Read about all HKS programs and centers.

Harvard Kennedy School faculty disseminate their research in working publications and papers that contribute to public knowledge and fuel policy innovation. This list features recent DPI faculty publications, including journal articles, books, edited volumes, research papers, and public testimony.