With an eye to the future, Dennis C. Grube explains how governments can improve their decision-making.
We live in an era when we really need governments to get it right, from the Covid-19 pandemic response to how they tackle climate change. Our lives depend on it. Yet, to many, they can seem clueless and their decisions leave us confused. Why?
In Why Governments Get It Wrong, Cambridge professor Dennis C. Grube from the Bennett Institute for Public Policy sifts through the embers of policy failures around the globe to ask how things can go so dramatically wrong, but also why they sometimes go right.
He shares an array of policy issues and case studies – from the UK school exam fiasco during the pandemic to the mining tax in Australia, electoral reform in Canada and sanitation in India – to excavate the line between success and failure.
“Politics is a tough business. Once elected, governing well is even tougher. But governments and their policies have a huge effect on our lives, even more so when they get it wrong, sometimes leaving us angry, poorer or in ill-health,” says Grube.
“By examining where governments get it wrong and also their successes, it’s possible to identify four elements to policymaking that need to be aligned for a policy to be a success and improve all our lives in the process.”
This new book is intended for everyone who has ever sat in front of the nightly news wondering what on earth the government thinks it is doing. Grube offers insight into what governments are at least trying to do: identify what’s wrong, work out why it’s wrong, explain the problem to the public, and decide what they’re going to do to fix it. How hard can that be?
Find out how the Government can finally get it right by joining Dennis C. Grube in conversation with David Runciman on Tuesday 7 October 2022 at Waterstones – Cambridge. Tickets are now on sale with the opportunity to buy your own signed copy.
The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy.
