Theory and Practice in Public Policy

MNPS/PUBP 700

Instructor: Catherine Rudder

Time of Class: Tuesdays, 4:30-7:05

Location: Arlington, Room # 268

Office Hours: Tuesdays, 3:30-4:30, Mondays, 3:30-6:30, or by appointment (If my door is open, please feel free to drop in anytime. Also, I’m easily available by email (rudder@gmu.edu) or phone (703-993-4996).

Theory and Practice in Public Policy, the gateway course for the Master’s Program in Public Policy, is designed to introduce you to many of the tools and concepts that will help you navigate in the world of public policy. A range of theories—positive, normative, deductive, inductive, middle-range, micro and macro—will be explored and applied to policy-making.

The objective of this course is to help you become a more sophisticated policy analyst with an ability to operate effectively in a political environment. You will be presented with a variety of ways of looking at political phenomena, conceiving of relationships, and understanding outcomes, and you will hone your skills in identifying assumptions, seeing multiple sides of issues, casting alternative frames to problems, understanding underlying interests, identifying stakeholders, and devising strategies for action. The course will aim to heighten your sensitivity to cultural, economic and political context and your appreciation of theoretical rigor, disinterested analysis, and empirical evidence for assertions. While many of the applications will be in the U.S. context, the theories are more broadly applicable to policy-making in market-based democracies. In addition, a strong international component is built into the course.

You will be asked to work individually and in teams in order to demonstrate your facility with the theories and their appropriate use, as well as to hone your research, public presentation and writing skills. Grades will be apportioned in the following manner:

* Two short papers 40% of grade (20% each)

* Take-home midterm 20%

* Take-home final exam 20%

* Class presentations/discussions 20%

Required Texts:

Logic of Collective Action : Public Goods and the Theory of Groups

Mancur Olson

Harvard University Press, Paperback Revised edition, 1971 (orig. pub. 1965)

Activists without Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics

Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink

Cornell University Press, 1998 (paper)

Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States

Albert O. Hirschman

Harvard University Press, 1970 (paper)

The Market System: What It Is, How It Works, and What to Make of It

Charles E. Lindblom

Yale University Press, 2001

Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, Revised Edition

Deborah Stone

W. W. Norton, 2001 (paper)

Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences

Jon Elster

Cambridge University Press, 1989 (paper)

“A Theory of Bargaining,” The Strategy of Conflict

Thomas C. Schelling

Oxford University Press, 1960, pp. 21-52 (on library reserve)

The New York Times (daily: all U.S., international and business news)

Class Schedule

January 22: Introduction

Introduction to the course

Discussion of required texts and recommended reading

Review of objectives and requirements

Creation of teams

Discussion of library resources, electronic sources, citation of sources, presentation techniques, plagiarism

What is theory?

Consideration of types of theory, elements of theory, testing and applying theory

Recommended reading:

Irving Goffman, Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959.

Understanding Groups

January 29: Individuals in Concert

Assignment: all of The Logic of Collective Action

Topics:

Application of rational actor theory to groups and organizations (deductive theory)

Concepts of collective or public goods, latent groups, incentives, and compulsion

Differences between large and small groups

Why individuals join groups, act in concert, provide for collective goods

Comparison with related theories: understanding interest groups

Application to states, class mobilization, labor unions, membership associations

Consideration of implications for policy-making, NGOs, and public policy

Recommended reading:

Amartya K. Sen, “Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 6: 4 (Summer 1977), 317-344 (available via JSTOR).

February 5: Groups in Concert: Networks

Assignment: Activists beyond Borders, Preface, Ch. 1, 2, 6; choose one of the following: Ch. 3, 4, or 5

Topics:

Network theory

Reconceptualizing international politics and the concept of sovereignty

Consideration of boomerang effects, international campaigns, issue framing, culture, political context, leverage, and elements of social movement theory

Creating social change: an international strategy of creating transnational advocacy networks (inductive and grounded theory)

Relationships among domestic actors, states, NGOs, international organizations, and foundations

Circumstances making creation of advocacy networks more likely

Role of leadership, political entrepreneurs, and past experience in networks

Network tactics

Impact of advocacy networks

Application: Historical precursors and contemporary case studies—presentation of cases by class members

February 12: Comparisons between Logic of Collective Action and Activists beyond Borders

Assignment: First short paper due.

Topics:

Activists beyond Borders (cont’d)

Assessment of theory: parsimony, elegance, applicability, breadth of explanation, assumptions

Testing theory: hypothesis testing, problems of measurement, operationalizating concepts, eliminating alternatives

Identifying unstated theories underlying analysis

Finding examples from articles in The NYTimes

Recommended reading:

Robert Putnam, “Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games,” International Organization 42 (Summer 1988): 427-60. (Available via JSTOR)

Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, (4th ed.), New York: Free Press, 1995.

Politics and Economics

February 19: Economics: Understanding the market context

Assignment: The Market System

Topics:

How markets work

Efficiency, inefficiencies, quid pro quo, freedom

Effects of the market system on personality and culture

The reach of the market system

Is a market system necessary for democracy?

Does a market system inflict harm on democracy?

Alternatives to markets

Applicability of those ideas in public policy-making

February 26: Structuring Choice

Assignment: All of Exit, Voice, and Loyalty

Topics:

Consideration of the concepts of exit and voice

Spacial theory as applied to the two-party system

Theory of loyalty

Assumptions underlying the theory

Role of public goods

Inside vs. outside strategies: fight from within or without? What are the trade-offs?

Application to education vouchers and privatization of postal services

Recommended reading:

Albert O. Hirschman, Shifting Involvements: Private Interest and Public Action, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982.

March 5: Game Theory and Strategic Bargaining

Assignment: Midterm exam due.

Thomas C. Schelling, “A Theory of Bargaining,” The Strategy of Conflict, New York: Oxford University Press, 1960, pp. 21-52.

Recommended reading:

All of The Strategy of Conflict.

Topics:

Discussion of bargaining strategy

Game Theory

Recommended reading:

Steven J. Brams, Negotiation Games: Applying Game Theory to Bargaining and Arbitration, NY: Routledge, 1990.

Roger Fisher and William Ury, with Bruce Patton, editor, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In, NY: Penguin Books, 1991.

March 19: The Political Project

Assignment: Policy Paradox, Introduction and Parts I and II

Topics:

Rationality project vs. the political project

Political vs. market models: what distinguishes the polis from the market?

Conflicting claims of normative goals: equity, efficiency, security and liberty

Essence of policy making in political communities: struggle over ideas

Multiple understandings of a single concept and political strategy to shape understandings

Finding hidden arguments

Alternatives to rational actor assumptions

Highly recommended reading:

James Madison, Federalist #10 (available on the Internet)

U.S. Constitution (Internet)

Recommended reading:

E.E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960.

John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984).

March 26: The Political Project (cont’d)

Assignment: Policy Paradox, Part III

Topics:

Problem definition: strategic representation of situations

Narrative stories, metaphors, and ambiguity

Manipulation of numbers

Assigning responsibility for problems: causal interpretation

Mobilization of interests

Why the logic of collective action does not pertain in the polis

Group strategies to define issues

Who has the power to decide?

Controlling the alternatives

Decision models

Cultural frameworks

Recommended reading:

Shanto Iyengar, Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).

April 2: The Political Project (cont’d)

Assignment: Policy Paradox, Part IV and Conclusion

Topics:

Policy instruments that are central in democracies: inducing people to act in prescribed ways

Inducements, rules, facts, rights, and powers

Why “reasoned analysis is necessarily political”

What is political reason?

April 9: The Political Project (cont’d)

Assignment: Second short paper due.

Topics:

How the policy analyst can incorporate Stone’s ideas

Assessing political feasibility