Public Policy: Double Degrees from the HSE and the University of Bologna

In early June Italian professors Cristian Vaccari and Lucio Picci gave a series of open lectures at the Higher School of Economics. Their visit is another step towards the implementation of the agreement on cooperation between the HSE and the University of Bologna signed in 2009.

C. Vaccari and L. Picci, each of whom spent a week in Moscow, were guests of the HSE Department of Public Policy:the professors'professional interests are largely connected with public policy and its realization in social relations. According to Nina Belyaeva, the organizer of the cooperation between the two universities, these Italian researchers will participate in the development of courses in the double degree master's programme in international and comparative public policy studies. The programme is scheduled to be launched next year by the HSE Department of Public Policy and the ‘Roberto Ruffilli'Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Bologna.

Everything started with a research seminar organized in Forli by Gilberto Capano, Dean of the ‘Roberto Ruffilli'Faculty, and Nina Belyaeva.

— At first, it was unclear how we would be able to develop academic cooperation with a Russian university, - Prof. Vaccari recalls their first meeting. Gilberto then said:‘Let's try, but remember I'm only an administrator - I can invite my staff members to your presentation, but I cannot force my researchers to participate in the project if they are not be interested'. But the first meeting was extremely positive. We asked Nina Belyayeva to send out her report, then we all read it and gathered for a discussion, which was very interesting and showed that our departments have a number of shared interests:theoretical issues of public policy, social policies, educational policies, media policies and others. Then Nina and Gilberto started thinking about a programme of academic exchange for lecturers and a student exchange programme and even about a double degree programme.

—It would have been easy to establish formal connections between our two small departments, since we clearly understood what we wanted to do together and why, - Nina Belyayeva continued. But such large bureaucratic structures like ‘classical universities'have specific rules:it was necessary to confirm interest in such collaboration from a minimum of three faculties on each side - and we achieved that in less than three months! Overall, I am proud of the agreement between the two universities, since it covers all possible areas of academic cooperation, starting with one-off teacher and student exchanges to joint extra-mural summer schools.

Cristian Vaccari

—The ‘Roberto Ruffilli'Faculty teaches political sciences, but among its professors there are not only political scientists, but sociologists, international relations experts, economists, historians, legal scholars and linguists - Cristian Vaccari explained. Such diversity helps our work —we supply new ideas for each other. For example, while I am formally a political scientist, Currently I am primarily carryng out research into mass media.

Mass media's influence over political processes in different countries was the topic of Cristian Vaccari's lectures in Moscow. He paid special attention to new means of communication, namely the internet, mobile technologies and various e-gadgets. New media have a number of advantages over the traditional ones:low cost, high speed of publication and distribution of information, absence of borders and mediators in the way of information, multimedia opportunities, interactivity and the combination of vertical and horizontal communication flows.

Through the new Internet, Web 2.0, users get a new quality;they become ‘prosumers'(producers and consumers). Since everyone can participate in the creation and distribution of information, internet users can act as a collective author and editor (an example of this is Wikipedia). In the end, according to Cristian Vaccari, by means of the internet people will be able to ‘independently self-organize'to achieve common goals, to create a new ‘useful product', mutual constructing and realizing the ‘common good'.

This, according to Prof. Vaccari, becomes a more and more significant factor in public policy, since these changes can lead to a shift of the center of political power from political elites to ordinary people who will be able to spread ideas and information. A new ‘digital political elite'is now being born, consisting of activists and public opinion leaders on the Internet. Meanwhile, it is important to remember that Internet and mobile technologies work not for propaganda, but help people cooperate and organize

However, ‘network miracles'are not happening in every country, there are too many factors here which depend on the specifics of political and social culture. In Russia, the Internet is the only space for political discussions, and it is still not very popular (the number of regular internet users in Russia, despite its constant growth, is still much lower than in the average European country).

But Cristian Vaccari is not pessimistic.

—I look at this problem from a researcher's point of view, —he said. I see many similarities in the interrelations between the government and the media in Russia and in Italy. Understanding of the processes taking place in Russia is very important for comparative analysis. I shall privately participate in one such study, which will cover a number of not fully democratic countries. We have to, conventionally speaking, define Russia on the political map of the world, and we can do this only through comparison with other countries.

Lucio Picci

Professor Lucio Picci also had a reason to come to Moscow. His course of lectures on ‘Reputation-Based Governance'is part of a monograph which is now being prepared for publication in the U.S., through Stanford University Publishing House. It is related to the problem of corruption and its evaluation and perception, a topic very familiar to Russian government, business and society.

Professor Picci suggested considering corruption as a particular case of rent —an advantage gained by one of the participants of a political, economic or social process thanks to certain connections with a person able to distribute such advantages. The participants in this corruption process are ‘searching for rent'. Corrupted officials are interested in saving the status quo and sometimes even in exacerbating the situation, so they use any means to oppose reforms. And their capabilities to oppose changes are sometimes so high, that it's impossible to fix the situation merely with orders from their administration:the consent of a considerable part of the officials'corporation is also needed.

Studying corruption is popular today, —Prof. Picci admitted, but it is very difficult to uncover cause-and-effect relations in this area. It is impossible to gather such information without independent media and active citizen organizations carrying out relevant monitoring. But the ‘human factor'can play a very negative role in this process:data can be disfigured intentionally or due to misinterpretation. Automatic integral systems can be of help, which will independently collect, structure and group information from different sources.

It is hard to say whether implementation of such systems is possible in the most corrupt countries, but, just like his colleague, Professor Picci is sure that it is anyway useful to study foreign experiences. For example, he was very surprised to hear a question on whether Italian students and researchers would want to come to Russia:

—Don't you understand? I can sound clichéd, but a normal curious person is always interested in coming to another country, and Russia is a very interesting country in terms of understanding the political process as well as in terms of its overall culture. For me as a professor these motives are obvious, and I think it would not be at all difficult to find Italian students willing to come here.

Nina Belyaeva is also confident about the success of the double degree programme:

Nina Belyaeva

—In the end, what is important is not papers and signatures, but whether our mutual desire to work together is great enough. We shall be moving step by step, starting with the student exchange programme. In the next academic year several Italian students are coming here for a master's programme:the University of Bologna has assigned supporting grants for them for this purpose. And we have already started letting our students know about courses which will be available for them in Bologna next year. In addition to this, we are planning to continue welcoming Italian professors with their lectures to the HSE and also aim to organize a special joint video course with Gilberto Capano on comparative analysis of public policy, similar to the one we regularly carry out with the American Professor John Dale from George Mason University.

So, without any doubt, the launch of the double degree programme in Public Policy between the HSE and the University of Bologna is almost a done deal.

 

 

Oleg Seregin, HSE News Service