Course Goals and Format
The goal of this course is to help you understand the "sources" of public policy, that is, why we have various public policies, and to teach you how to produce professional policy analysis whether you are working for decision maker in government, public interest groups, or the private sector. Developing policy expertise requires work in three areas. First, we will look at formal economic theories of policy. This tends to be very academic (even boring), but it is important that you are exposed to the terms and concepts. Second, we will look at political theories of policy. These tend to be messy and imprecise, but it is important that you begin to develop a more nuanced and sophisticated view of the political process. The focus of both of these two areas will not be on the technical aspects of the theories but on the intuition behind the theories and what the theories tell us about the real policy world. Lastly, we will learn how to actually produce professional analyses. This is decidedly different from writing term papers, requiring a different approach.
Around two thirds of the classes will consist of lectures and class exercises and discussions. You will have occasional assignments for class preparation. You are expected to attend class, keep up with the readings, and participate in class discussions, assignments, and projects. Note that the lectures and the readings, particularly when we look at political theories of policy, will complement, not duplicate, each other.
You will conduct a policy analysis as a major portion of your grade in this class. This will be a group project that will occupy the last portion of the semester. That is, considerable in-class time will be devoted to the project — you will also be expected to devote out-of-class time to the project. We will serve as "consultants" to an organization desiring advice on policy options. Our job, as consultants, will be to assist the client in making the best choice. We will divide into teams to conduct the research, with the teams presenting their research to the whole class the last week of the semester. Each student will write a final analysis discussing the policy options for the client, using the research produced by the teams. It is due the last week of class on Friday, April 28, at 5:00 p.m.