Life and Thought
Derek Bok is the former president of Harvard University and author of the book The Politics of Happiness. In this work, he examines the findings of happiness research and the possibility of using them in government policymaking.
Derek Curtis Bok (born 1930) is an American lawyer and academic who served as president of Harvard University from 1971 to 1991, and later also served for a time as interim president of the university. After retiring from the Harvard presidency, he turned to writing and research in the fields of higher education, governance, and public policy.
One of his most important works is the book The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being (2010). In this book, Bok examines the findings of empirical research on happiness and well-being and asks whether governments should consider citizens' happiness as one of the goals of policymaking. He analyzes various topics, including economic growth, inequality, health, family, and the quality of government, from the perspective of their impact on happiness.
In his works, Bok emphasizes the role of institutions and public policies in enhancing the quality of life and strives to connect the findings of the social sciences to the realm of policymaking.
