Politikfeldanalyse
Content
Why do public policies on issues like social welfare, education, the environment and immigration differ across countries and regions in the world? Why and how do they change over time? In a globalized world, do public policies in different countries converge on common ideas, recipes and procedures? If so, how do policies spread across borders? This module explores how and why public policies differ across nations. It focuses on policies in areas including those listed above with examples coming primarily from advanced industrialized nations. The module examines theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of public policy rather than the content of public policy. Although there will be discussion of the content of policy, this will be incidental to the discussion of public policy theory and methods. Among the topics to be considered in the first course of this module are approaches to the study of the policy process; theoretical orientations toward such policy elements as policy tools (regulation and others) and policy typologies; normative (value) and empirical issues of public policy; the role of information and values in the policy process; and others. The second course examines and applies analytical and empirical methods for developing and evaluating the theoretical claims about public policy reviewed in the first course. This is not a module in policy analysis; that is, it does not teach such methods as cost-benefit analysis, though it does examine the role of such methods in the policy process.
Learning Outcome
Students will acquire
| A sense of alternative approaches to the examination of public policy and of their respective strengths and limits.
| Awareness of the role of interests, ideas, knowledge, uncertainties, and other factors in the devel-opment of public policy.
| Awareness of factors that affect whether and how potential topics become issues and get on the agendas of policymakers for consideration.
| A sense of overall trends in development of policy in advanced industrial nations.
| Conceptual clarity in evaluating overall policy development, drawing on various approaches that attempt to account for those developments.
| Enhanced ability to explore policy issues and to present the results of those explorations clearly, concisely, and in compelling form in written and oral communication.
| Greater and more in depth understanding of different research designs and methodologies and their strengths and challenges in the context of substantive analysis of public policy.
Lehrveranstaltungen im Modul (Vorlesungsverzeichnis)
| Einführung in die Politikfeldanalyse
| Methoden der Politikfeldanalyse