The document summarizes a panel discussion on incorporating happiness into public policy. It discusses the Happiness Policy Handbook, which provides tools for policymakers to measure and promote happiness. The panelists describe policies like supporting happiness data collection, reforming cost-benefit analysis to include well-being, and changing urban planning, education, healthcare and work to focus on relationships and reduce stress. Measuring happiness at a community level and learning from social movements were also discussed.

1. HAPPINESS IN PUBLIC POLICYA step by step guide based on experience in the happiness movement
Hosted by
Laura Musikanski
Executive Director
happycounts.org
Panelists:
John Helliwell
ON PARTNERSHIPS
Rhonda Phillips
ON THE HAPPINESS POLICY HANDBOOK
Jean Crowder
ON HURDLES
Lester Kurtz
ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Michael Moser
ON MEASURING HAPPINESS
Stefano Bartolini
ON FOUR POLICIES
SCHEDULE ONE-ON-ONE
CONVERSATIONS WITH SELECT
PANELISTS AT THE HAPPINESS
ALLIANCE BOOTH

2. National well-being strategies should
• Support official collection of happiness data
• Reform cost/benefit analysis
• Give subjective well-being a central umbrella role
• Facilitate bottom-up happiness innovations
• Use Partnerships for Happiness to bridge silos
• That’s enough for seven minutes- Thank You
From surveys to sidewalks
How subjective well-being can inform roadmaps
to national well-being

3. The Happiness Policy
Handbook: How to Make
Happiness the Purpose of Your
Government
By Laura Musikanski, Rhonda Phillips, and Jean Crowder
Available soon for pre-orders from
New Society Publishing
See happycounts.org/happinesspolicy

4. Provides:
Policy-makers, community
organizers, and others the
means to join the happiness
movement and make a vital
difference so that all people
have equal opportunities to
pursue happiness.
“Not Giving Happiness, But Giving Fundamental and Equal
Conditions of Happiness for All”

5. A clear, accessible and cohesive guide with two sections:
• Context, history, and
trajectory
• (“our inalienable right to the
pursuit of happiness”)
• What happiness policy is and
why it matters
• The happiness – sustainability
connection
• Action plans that can be
adapted and adopted to fit
the area and situation by
any level policy-maker
• Happiness proclamations
• Community engagement
• Measuring happiness

6. And explanations, forms, and tools…
• Happiness Policy Screening
Tool
• Social Media Guide
• Happiness Surveys
• Happiness Index Questions
• Happiness Policy Screening
Tool

7. Jean Crowder, former Member of Parliament Canada
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over
and over again but expecting different results.”

8. Solutions:
• Get local
communities to lead
• Learn how to lobby
effectively
• Use Media – Digital
and Traditional
• Interest a key
decision maker
• Grassroots for
campaigns

9. Mobilizing for
Happiness
Lester R. Kurtz
George Mason University
Korea
OECD WORLD FORUM 2018
- See also Kurtz, “Shifting
Economic Paradigms, Mobilizing a
Movement” prepare for the UN
Meeting on Happiness and
Wellbing
https://works.bepress.com/lester_kur
tz/45/
©2018 Lester Kurtz email: lkurtz@gmu.edu

10. Mobilizing a
Movement:
- Listen
- Analyze
- Mobilize

11. Listen-Analyze
- Ascertain causes &
consequences: social
epidemiology
- Look for opportunities for
- Fair Distribution
- Sustainability
Galtung, Johan. “Cultural Violence.” Journal of Peace Research 27, no. 3 (1990):
291–305.
Kurtz, Lester R. “Fighting Violence against Women: A Toolkit.” In Women, War,
and Violence: Topography, Resistance, and Hope [2 Vols]. edited by Mariam M.
Kurtz and Lester R. Kurtz. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger, 2015.

12. Mobilize with Nonviolence
"Which way of life is the more
desirable - to join with other citizens
and share in the state's activity, or
to live in it like an alien, absolved
from the ties of political society?"
Aristotle, Politics

13. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works. Columbia University Press,2011

14. Effects of campaign membership on the probability of success (Chenoweth & Stefan
2011): Every national campaign 1900-2006 with 3.5% participation succeeded

15. Klar & Kasser:
Activism→ Higher
Wellbeing
Klar, Malte, and Tim Kasser. “Some
Benefits of Being an Activist:
Measuring Activism and Its Role in
Psychological Well-Being.”
Political Psychology 30, no. 5
(2009): 755–77.

16. Role of Policy Makers
Listen: See resistance movements as allies,
➔ Institutionalize communication
channels
➔ Hear grievances with empathy
➔ Measure objective and subjective
measures of wellbeing as official policy
Analyze: What policies can promote Gross
Global Happiness & Wellbeing?
Mobilize: Act on findings, implement pro-
happiness policies, resist when necessary

17. Applying Wellbeing Indicators
The Vermont, USA Case Study
Michael Moser

18. Wellbeing Indicators in Vermont
• Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)
• Codified in Vermont Government Bylaws & Processes
• Gross National Happiness Index (GNH)
• Data Collection and Inclusion in Metrics Work

19. Factors Influencing Adoption
• Small, Homogenous, Liberal, Civic-minded Population
• Accessible Government Officials and Processes
• Strong Leadership and Follow-through
• Trusted Voices that Help Deliver the Messaging
• Available Data

20. Michael Moser, Research Specialist and Program Coordinator, University of Vermont.
mmoser@uvm.edu
This is a Collaboration
M

21. What matters for happiness?
• Relationships matter a
lot
• Money? It matters little and mostly at low income
levels

22. Policies for happiness
Changing:
• urban life
• advertising
• working life
• schooling
• health care

23. Changing cities
For 5000 years, cities
have been built as a
place where people
could meet
Then cars arrived ….

24. The relational city
• Where cars play a less dominant role people are
happier and have more relationships.
• Pedestrian areas, parks,
sport centers,
walkability, car
restrictions, public
transport, cycling.

25. Changing schools
Students are taught:
• Time to perform is not time for well-being
• Competition
• To focus on cognitive intelligence

26. Reducing advertising
• Ban tv-ads targeting children
• Heavy taxation on advertising

27. Changing work experience
Incentives

28. Unsustainable health care

29. Results from epidemiology
Happiness plays a
dominant role in the
health of individuals
and populations

30. HAPPINESS IN PUBLIC POLICYA step by step guide based on experience in the happiness movement
happycounts.org
Rhonda Phillips
Jean Crowder
Laura Musikanski
ON THE HAPPINESS POLICY HANDBOOK
Lester Kurtz
ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Michael Moser
ON MEASURING HAPPINESS
Stefano Bartolini
ON FOUR POLICIES
SCHEDULE ONE-ON-ONE
CONVERSATIONS WITH SELECT
PANELISTS AT THE HAPPINESS
ALLIANCE BOOTH