Pols 460: Public Policy Processes

Pols 460: Public Policy Processes

Meeting Time: 3:30-445PM; Clark C348

Instructor: Dr. Ryan Scott, ; Clark C335: T, 2:00-3:00PM; Th,11-12AM.

What is the Public Policy Processes? Good question. Have you ever been confused by a rule? Wondered why we have rules? Have you worked on a team and found competing ideas or goals led to stalemate? Maybe you want to know why policies that do not seem to work get continued, policies supported by the public don’t get adopted. If you have ever considered any of these questions, this course is right for you. We’ll actually start by learning what public policies are, then, we’ll learn about their “processes”. Along the way we’ll learn how to study policies using concepts, models, and frameworks. My goal for this course is to partially stretch your thinking and teach the academic field of policy process, so that you can apply knowledge gained from scholarship to policies you care about and are interested in, both now and in the future.

Learning Objectives

●Understand why and how we study policy processes.

●Engage with and define concepts used to describe the policy process

●Evaluate models and theories used to explain policy process

●Utilize models and concepts to interpret and analyze contemporary policy issues.

●Create new understandings and knowledge about public policies through independent research and application of models

Course policies

This course will adhere to the CSU Academic Integrity Policy as found on the Student' Responsibilities page of the CSU General Catalog, and in the Student Conduct Code. At a minimum, violations will result in a grading penalty in this course and a report to the Office of Student Resolution Center.

Please submit your assignments on time. If you have an extenuating circumstance, please let me know at least 72 hours prior to the assignment due time otherwise the assignment will be counted as late, and, you will receive at a minimum a deduction of no less than 10% of the assignment grade for each day the assignment is withheld past the due date. Final project papers turned in after the due time will receive a 0. Of course, if you are sick, have a health issue, have an event to attend, provide Dr. Scott an email, contact student case management, and we will work things out.

Our goal is to create a positive and engaging environment. Come to class. Participate. Be respectful of others opinions. Assume the person on your left and right both believe very differently from you on every subject we discuss. Moreover, engage with them constructively. Listen. Think. And respond in an appropriate manner.

Readings

There will be two textbooks for the course:

●Cairney, P., 2011. Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues. Palgrave Macmillan.

●Stone, D.A., 2012. Policy paradox: The art of political decision making. WW Norton New York.

In addition, each week I will assign a scientific article and popular press article. Aim to read the textbook by class Tuesday, and the article and popular press pieces by Thursday. By Thursday you should have read all of the readings so you can turn in your definitions incorporating what you learned in class by Friday at 9PM.

Graded Assignments

Attendance participation and in class assignments (10%)

You will be assessed on your efforts to work with your neighbors in applying course concepts and completing in-class assignments. There are no make ups allowed for missed in class assignments unless you contact Dr. Scott beforehand alerting me to your predicament.

Weekly Policy Concepts (20%)

Each week, you will submit extended definitions for a set of key terms as well as a brief response to a set of pre-assigned prompts. The definitions cannot be taken from the book but should reflect what you learned from. Your reading. For each concept, define the concept in your own term explaining what the concept means in terms of public policy. Each concept definition will be approximately 100 words in length, and, you should expect to complete approximately 5 concept definitions a week. You will submit these responses by no later than Friday at 9:00 pm. Additionally, you will be asked to review another classmates concepts by the start of class the following Tuesday. This peer review will be facilitated in Canvas. This assignment will be graded on a high pass, pass, no credit grading system. To receive a high pass you must complete both peer review and definitions fully and competently.

Unit prompt responses (15%)

These short prompts are take-home assessments of your understanding of the materials for each unit. The response to each prompt should be approximately 500 words, and will require you to demonstrate your ability to apply concepts integratively to an applied case. You will complete 4 of these throughout the semester.

Final Project (the rest)

For your final project, you will complete an 8 to 10 page double spaced paper in which you pick one of the Advocacy Coalition Framework, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, Multiple Streams Approach, Institutional Analysis and Development, or Innovation and Diffusion, Social Construction, or New Institutionalism to critically analyze the proposal, design, development, change, termination or continuation of a public policy. For this project, you will complete three assignments: a proposal, a poster, and a final paper.

Proposal: (15%) Conduct outside research on a public policy of interest to you. For that policy, write a three page research proposal. In your proposal you should, 1) introduce the public policy, briefly describing the problem it addresses, as well as the context, history, purpose, and implementation of the policy (about 2 pages). 2) Propose a research question, or, a statement of what about the policy you find interesting or useful. 3) Make a case for why the question is an interesting or useful to ask based on material covered through week 8 in the course (about 1 page). For this assignment, you should utilize at least seven sources for understanding your policy. Allowable sources include newspapers (no more than two out of the seven, scholarly articles (such as those in published journals, published books or book chapters, wikipedia (yes, go read the wikipedia page on your policy), and other documents including white papers, government documents, or reports. Make sure to include a bibliography with works cited in Chicago Manual of Style. Use 12 point font and 1 inch margins.

Poster Presentation: (15%) Prepare an academic poster in which you 1) describe your research question, 2) explain the context//importance of the question, 3) describe the methods or theoretical approach for your research, 4) characterize your results and findings of your research, and 5) provide conclusions about what your research teaches us about the public policy process. The posters will be presented in class during the in-class poster day, and you should be prepared to talk for about 2 minutes about your poster. View this as a chance to test your ideas, get feedback from other students, and create an early outline/draft of your final written assignment. Because posters are meant to communicate visually, your poster should by no means have more than 500 words on it. Instead, use words sparingly, think about using/creating visuals. The posters will be created in Google Slides or Powerpoint. You can use the template on the Canvas page to get started. Final posters should submitted via Canvas as a PDF. Dr. Scott will print them and bring them to class. Make sure to cite the sources you use for your poster on the citation slide in the template from the Canvas page. Your poster will be graded primarily for the originality of research and evidence of critical application of course concepts. Each of you will be assigned two classmates posters to review and comment on in detail. You will provide your classmates with approximately 250-500 words describing 1) Great elements of final project, 2) Elements of final project that could use improving, and 3) Recommendations for course concepts that might be integrated into the final paper in analyzing the research question.

Final Paper: (25%)Building on comments received on your proposal and poster presentation, complete a final paper with five sections: Introduction, Rationale, Methodology, Results/Discussion, and Conclusion. Your paper must also include a research question and a thesis statement in which you describe what you your policy study teaches about the public policy process.

Introduction: Briefly introduce the topic of your paper and your research question. At the the end of the introduction, include thesis statement where you describe your main argument/finding, and a road map describing for the reader what follows in the rest of your paper.

Rationale: Make a case for why the research you are conducting matters. In short, what model/models are you using to explore the policy you chose to study, and why is applying that model useful for understanding public policy processes?

Methodology: How did you conduct your research? Did you read books, review documents, etc? Did you do your own evaluation or are you primarily relying on others evaluations? Essentially, this is your chance to briefly demonstrate why your findings are believable.k

Results/Discussion: What did you find? Here, connect your research on your policy you conducted for your proposal and poster to the framework you chose in order to answer your research question. This section should be the largest part of the paper.

Conclusion: Summarize your paper, restate your thesis and remind the reader of what they should learn from your paper. If there are important implications for other policies, other scholarship, etc, make sure you explain why your findings may matter in those areas as well..

Your paper should be 8-10 pages, double spaced, 12 point Times New Roman font, 1 inch margins, with a works cited page in Chicago Manual of Style, APA, or MLA. This works cited page must include citations from within the course and outside of the course. For example, if you use a concept from the course, provide a citation to the page/chapter where Cairney or another author discussed that concept as you apply it. Submit your final paper to Canvas by the start of the University scheduled examination period.

Grade Scale

We will use the standard CSU Grade Scale for this course with +/- letter grading.

>97 A+; >93 A; >90 A-;>87 B+;>83 B;>80 B-; >77 C+; >70 C;>=60 D; <60 F

Schedule: Subject to Change

Unit 1: Introduction and Foundations of Public Policy

Week 1, 1/16,1/18: Introduction

Reading: Cairney Introduction (1)

Stone: 1, The Market and the Polis

Popular Press Article

●Vock, Daniel C. 2017. “Can Road Rage Stop Colorado’s Plan to Expand a Highway?” April 27.

Week 2, 1/23,1/25: Defining public policy and using models

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 2

Academic Article:

●Cairney, P., Weible, C.M., 2017. The new policy sciences: combining the cognitive science of choice, multiple theories of context, and basic and applied analysis. Policy Sci. 50, 619–627.

Popular Press Article

●Allain, Rhett. 2017. “DON’T YOU DARE TRY TO TEACH SCIENCE WITHOUT BUILDING MODELS.” Wired, January 13.

Week 3, 1/30, 2/1: Power

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 3

Stone: 16, Powers

Stone: 2, Equity

Academic Article:

●Gaventa, J., 1982. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. University of Illinois Press.

Popular Press Article

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Week 4, 2/6, 2/8: Institutions

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 4

Stone: 7, Symbols

Stone: 13, Rules

Academic Article:

●Hall, P.A., Taylor, R.C.R., 1996. Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms. Polit. Stud. 44, 936–957.

Popular Press Article:

●

Unit 1 Prompt Due

Unit 2: Decisions, Structure, and Agents

Week 5, 2/13, 2/15: Rationality, Bounded Rationality and Incrementalism

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 5

Stone: 11, Decisions

Academic Article:

●Bendor, J., 2015. Bounded Rationality, in: Wright, J.D. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition). Elsevier, Oxford, pp. 773–776.

Popular Press Article:

●Lewis, Michael. 2011. “Michael Lewis on the King of Human Error.” The Hive. Vanity Fair. November 8.

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Week 6, 2/20,2/22: Structural Explanations

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 6

Academic Article:

●Harrison, K., 2013. The political economy of British Columbia’s carbon tax. OECD Environment Working Papers 0_1.

Popular Press Article:

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Week 7, 2/27, 3/1: Rational choice

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 7

Stone 3, Efficiency

Stone 4, Welfare

Academic Article:

●Nobel Prize Lecture by Elinor Ostrom, 2010

Popular Press Article:

Deloria, V., Jr, 1978. The Lummi Indian Community: The Fishermen of the Pacific Northwest. American Indian economic development 87–198.

Unit 2 Prompt Due

Unit 3: Policymakers and participants

Week 8, 3/6, 3/8: Governance

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 8

Academic Article:

●Emerson, K., Nabatchi, T., Balogh, S., 2012. An integrative framework for collaborative governance. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 22, 1–29.

Popular Press Article:

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Policy Project Proposals Due

Week 9, 3/20, 3/22: Punctuated Equilibrium Theory

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 9

Academic Article:

●Cashore, B., Howlett, M., 2007. Punctuating Which Equilibrium? Understanding Thermostatic Policy Dynamics in Pacific Northwest Forestry. Am. J. Pol. Sci. 51, 532–551.

Popular Press Article:

●Silver, Nate. 2015. “Change Doesn’t Usually Come This Fast.” FiveThirtyEight. FiveThirtyEight. June 26.

Week 10,3/27, 3/29: Advocacy Coalition Framework

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 10

Stone: 8, Numbers

Stone: 10, Interests

Academic Article:

●Heikkila, T., Pierce, J.J., Gallaher, S., Kagan, J., Crow, D.A., Weible, C.M., 2014. Understanding a Period of Policy Change: The Case of Hydraulic Fracturing Disclosure Policy in Colorado. Rev. Policy Res. 31, 65–87.

Popular Press Article:

●No Popular Press Article

Unit 3 Prompt Due

No Class Thursday

Unit 4: Policy Ideas, Diffusion and Transfer

Week 11, 4/3, 4/5: Ideas

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 11

Stone 9, Causes

Academic Article:

●Reich, G., Barth, J., 2010. Educating Citizens or Defying Federal Authority? A Comparative Study of In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students. Policy Stud. J. 38, 419–445.

●Stone, Deborah A. 1989. Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas. Political Science Quarterly 104, 2: 281-300.

Popular Press Article:

●Irwin, Neil. 2016. “After Mass Shootings, It’s Often Easier to Buy a Gun.” The New York Times, June 14.

Week 12, 4/10, 4/12 : Policy Transfer And Diffusion

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 12

Academic Article:

●Pralle, Sarah. 2006. “The ‘Mouse That Roared’: Agenda Setting in Canadian Pesticides Politics.” Policy Studies Journal: The Journal of the Policy Studies Organization 34 (2). Blackwell Publishing Inc: 171–94.

Popular Press Article

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Week 13, 4/17, 4/19: Synthesis and Conclusions

Reading: Cairney, Chapter 13

Unit 4 Prompt Due

Unit 5: Applications

Week 14, 4/24, 4/26, : Cases

Reading: TBD; cases will be determined by class interest

Poster Presentations on Thursday

Week 15, 5/1, 5/3: Cases

Reading: TBD; cases will be determined by class interest