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Masters in Public Policy (M.Sc) Georgetown University
2022- 2024, United States Washington D.C 

The McCourt School’s Master of Public Policy program, shaped me by showing me how to tackle complex challenges through impactful public policy. The program is designed to provide essential analytical skills needed to be highly effective in designing, analyzing and implementing policy in the U.S. and globally. Being in D.C, I had access to experienced professors, passionate peers and a vast network of policymakers and practitioners. 

First Year

  • Statistical Methods of Policy Analysis

  • Intermediate Microeconomics I

  • Comparative Policy Process

  • Innovation and Public Policy​

  • Ethics/Value/Public Policy 

  • Management and Implementation in the developing world

  • Regression Methods for Policy Analysis

Second Year

  • Program Evaluation Methods

  • Thesis Workshop I

  • ​Intermediate Microeconomics II

  • Organizational Management

  • Thesis Workshop II

Thesis: Does Democracy mean Happiness?

Summary

My thesis delves into the relationship between democracy and happiness to encourage policymakers to understand the nuances that effect a nations happiness levels.​ In many foreign policy instances, democracy promotion has undermined sovereignty and stability in developing nations. By arguing that democracy is not the most relevant factors to a nation’s happiness, the intricate relationship between a nations democracy and happiness scores is scrutinized to dispel the notion that states must adopt democratic governments to prosper.

Policy Impacts of this thesis 

This thesis allows policy makers to understand the impacts of democracy on a variety of factors but in particular happiness levels of a country. The hope is that after reading this thesis, foreign policy makers can think a lot deeper about why democracy promotion is necessary and whether it should be done at all. Our findings enable policymakers to have a better understanding of why nations should or should not be subjugated to being democratic through the examination of democracy and happiness, shedding light on this complex relationship contributing to a deeper understanding of the role of democracy or other factors in shaping a nation's overall contentment.

Methods & Results
 
A ten-year average from 2013-2023 is taken from 163 countries of all the variables from a variety of data sources. A generalized linear regression is ran to show that when only economic and governance indicators are in the model, democracy does play a significant role on nations happiness. However, when the demographic factors are added, this significance is no longer there. Demographical factors of a nation, such as the electricity access, health conditions and more, are relatively more important when thinking about citizens and their happiness levels.

A nations government effectiveness, no matter what the government style, and demographic conditions are more predictive of how happy the citizens will be. Further descriptive analysis revealed that a counties history is important as well. Whether a country was a colonizer or was colonized proved to be critical in determining a countries development level today regarding their governance, economic, and demographical conditions. It seems that whether a country is democratic or not does not seem too relevant regarding many development and governance indicators of country.

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