Getting big things done

We don’t talk enough about state capacity, and we might talk far too much about public policy generally. If state capacity represents the state’s ability to implement its decisions, those decisions should not be discussed and debated in isolation.

Here’s a small example from a friend who would know.

The federal government has aggressive immigration targets. We want to let more people in. The relevant constraint is now not so much immigration policy as it is application processing timelines. We want to let more people in but our people and systems are holding us back.

I really do think that we should talk about this more. To that end, my brother Matt and I are hosting an online event in a couple of weeks on this very topic.

We’re calling it, Getting Big Things Done: A Discussion of State Capacity and Competence.

We’re being joined by Tyler Cowen, who wrote this, Alon Levy, who wrote this, and Ginny Roth, one of the smarter ascending voices in Canadian conservative politics.

It should make for a very interesting two hours. If you’d like to join, you can register here.