#95 Lippman-Dewey Debates: Janata Is Janardhan? 🎧

<strong><em>Note: Anticipating The Unintended will be on its annual break over the next two weeks. Normal service will resume from Jan 3, 2021 </em></strong><br/><br/><em>This newsletter is really a public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question: </em><strong><em>how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?</em></strong><br/><br/><em>Welcome to the mid-week edition in which we write essays on a public policy theme. The usual public policy review comes out on weekends.</em><br/><br/><em>PS: If you enjoy listening instead of reading, we have this edition available as an audio narration on all podcasting platforms courtesy the good folks at </em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.ad-auris.com/"><em>Ad-Auris</em></a><em>. If you have any feedback, please send it to us.</em><br/><br/><em>- RSJ</em><br/><br/>The focus of this newsletter is to make public policy accessible to the public. That’s a claim we often make around here. There are thinktanks and public policy specialists to advise those who are in power. We are at the other end of the pipe. Trying to influence the demand side of the market of democracy. The hope is that an aware and an enlightened public will demand better from their representatives. Once the pattern of demand changes, supply will adjust itself. <br/><br/>The reassuring bit about working at this end of the democratic pipe is the freedom to engage with and critique policies on their merits without tiptoeing our way around giant political or bureaucratic egos. Also, simplifying the language used in policy discourse is fun and enriching. Of course, the difficult part is getting people to listen to you. Not because it is difficult to reach them. Instead as we often realise, the public isn’t interested to know more. They