Graduate | Current Syllabi | Term022 |

Maryland in Europe Graduate Programs
Bowie State University

Public Policy Analysis
PUAD 530
Term 2 (Nov 2-Dec 15, 2002)
Weekends: 2/3,16/17 Nov, 7/8, 15 Dec
09:00 – 17:00
Kapaun Air Base, Bldg 2784

Instructor: Randy E. Robertson
Email:  robertsonr@hq.2sigbde.army.mil
Telephone: Home: 06221 752 900
Office Hours: Before/After class or by appointment.

Required Texts:

Dye, T.R. (1998). Understanding Public Policy, 9th Edition, Prentice Hall

Anderson, J.E. (2000). Public Policymaking, 4th Edition, Houghton Mifflin Company

Supplemental Text:

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Edition. (2001). Washington DC: American Psychological Association.   –

Explanation: The APA citation style, or variations on it, has become the standard for most professional journals, regardless of discipline. Maryland in Europe Graduate Programs has adopted a policy to require this style guide for all student papers. For PA students, the book is now required reading in PUAD502 - Qualitative Research Methods and supplementary reading for all other courses. This policy is meant to enhance student writing, encourage standard scholarly citations in all student papers, and discourage plagiarism.

If you have already taken PUAD502, you have probably been introduced to the basic concepts of the style guide but you may not have bought the 5th Edition. If you are nearly finished with your degree program, you might be able to "fake it" through your last few courses without the book. If you are relatively new to the program, I recommend you buy the book and start using it for every class.

A working copy of a document titled "The APA Way: A tutorial for the Master of Arts in Administrative Management - Public Administration", dated April 2002 is available at http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~kboyd/APA-PA.htm. The document is under revision and will be updated periodically.

Course Description

A systematic analysis of public policy alternatives, factors, and processes involved in policy development, including development of agency goals and objectives.

Course Objectives:
 

• Appreciate the scope and complexity of public policy.
• Develop an understanding of the Federal, State, and local government relationship.
• Provide critical thinking opportunities related to models of public policy analysis and their use in the public forum.
• Observe the linkage between public policy and other fields of study including law, ethics, economics, and history.
• Study public policy from through the developmental process.
• Develop a greater understanding/appreciation of public policy issues viewed from the various perspectives of the "players" involved.
• Become familiar with analytical techniques available for public policy analysis and further developing both written and oral formats for policy presentation.

Format. A variety of instructional methods: lecture, discussion, case studies, group exercises, and student presentations. Due to the condense, time sensitive structure, advanced preparation is crucial.

Attendance. Punctual and complete attendance for each session is necessary. Absences should be pre-arranged when possible and will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Assignments will be turned in on time.

Grading:
 

A. Class Participation: 10% (Selected public policy topical presentations of 5-10 minutes by students)

B. Course Paper: 30%

C. Group Presentation: 30%

D. Final Exam: 30%

Course Paper (APA format):
 

A. 12-15 pages. Graduate-level work.  Subject to be submitted and approved NLT 16 November class.  The paper should demonstrate a clear understanding of the policy issue, the stakeholders, the roles and influences of the various governmental agencies in the formulation and implementation. Additional guidance will be provided in class.

Group Presentations. In-class presentations will be conducted on 8 and 15 December (depending on class size).   Students will pair in groups 2-3 for 30-40 minute presentation of a significant public policy issue (at the federal level).  Alternative delivery styles/techniques are encouraged (TBD).  Adherence to allotted time is part of the grade.

Outline:
 

2-3 November:  Class Introduction/syllabus overview.  Harvard Case Study (BATNA) and discussion of actors/interest. Anderson, Ch 2, 3, 4.  Dye, Ch 3. Participation Exercise. The Constitution & selected amendments.

16-17 November:  Review.  Course paper topic discussion.  Dye, Ch 4,5, 6,8.  Anderson, Ch 6.  Topical Presentation discussion and analysis each day.

7-8 December: Review. 7 Dec is Budget/Econ Day: Dye - Ch 7 and Anderson, Ch 5.  Topical Presentation discussion and analysis.

 8 Dec is Policy Implementation/Evaluation Day: Anderson - Ch 4, 6, 7.  Dye - Ch. 14.  Group Presentations (or Dye – Ch 9, 13).  Final Review.

15 Dec: Group Presentations, Course evaluations, Final.

Suggested Sources:  (borrowed from Dr. Kathy Boyd, UMUC)

There are several relevant, peer reviewed, scholarly journals available to you in the ABI/Inform database of the UMUC online library at http://www.umuc.edu/library, including

Public Administration Review
American Review of Public Administration
Foreign Policy
Contemporary Economic Policy
Health Politics, Policy and Law

The NetLibrary database of the UMUC online library contains at least 40 books on policy issues, many of them related to environmental policy.

In addition, the following journals can be accessed directly, free of charge, via the WWW:

Education Policy Analysis Archives.  A peer reviewed scholarly electronic journal publishing education policy analysis since 1993. Available online at http://epaa.asu.edu/.

Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State - IIP publishes five electronic journals (Economic Perspectives, U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda, U.S. Society & Values, Global Issues, and Issues of Democracy) with a new journal in one of the series appearing each month. While these are not peer reviewed articles, the do represent a structured, analytical approach to policy analysis. Available online at http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/.

Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory is a high quality, peer review journal. Full text articles from 1991-2000 are available online at http://bush.tamu.edu/research/cpg/pa-archive/Browse/Index.asp

Journal of Technology, Law and Policy. A student managed journal publishing articles written by advance law students at the University of Florida. Available online at http://grove.ufl.edu/~techlaw/.

National Public Management Research Archive contains the working papers presented by leading PA scholars during the 5th and 6th annual public management research conference. Although we cannot consider these papers "peer reviewed", they are a far better source of knowledge than most public access web sites. Available online at http://bush.tamu.edu/pubman/

Policy Review Online. Previously published by the Heritage Foundation, now published by The Hoover Institute. Available online at http://www.policyreview.org/archives.html

Public Administration and Management: An Interactive Journal. The first peer reviewed journal on the Internet devoted to the fields of Public Administration and Management. Online at http://www.pamij.com/.

RECOMMENDED WEB SITES:

National Center for Policy Analysis at http://www.ncpa.org/: A nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization, established in 1983. The NCPA's goal is to develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector. Topics include reforms in health care, taxes, Social Security, welfare, criminal justice, education and environmental regulation.

Public Agenda Online at http://www.publicagenda.org/: A nonpartisan, nonprofit public opinion research and citizen education organization based in New York City. It was founded in 1975 by social scientist and author Daniel
Yankelovich and former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance.

State Politics and Policy Quarterly Data Resource at http://www.unl.edu/SPPQ/: An experiment on the payoffs of pursing a more centralized data infrastructure for researchers interested in state politics and policy. The heart of the web site is a series of data sets than include more than 50 state-level indicators on everything from crime rates to unified partisan control of state government.

FedStats Home at http://www.fedstats.gov/ is the gateway to statistics from over 100 U.S. Federal agencies.

FirstGov at http://firstgov.gov is the egovernment portal to the federal government with links to state governments.

GPO Access at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/index.html is the beginning point for all federal government documents available online.

Legal Information Institute at http://aloe.csv.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/ is the UK mirror of a site maintained by Cornell University that supports legal research.