Course Paper and Interim Assignments

The goals of this course are first, to enable students to analyze the process of public policy making in the U.S. so that they can, second, understand the substance of policy in issue areas of concern to them and third, participate effectively in policy making if they choose to participate. Toward these ends, we learn to analyze the policy process in terms of ideas, participants and steps, and apply such analyses in selected issue areas. The course paper is intended as a tool for both learning to do this analysis and for demonstrating that ability.

Each student will prepare a paper of 15-20 pages describing and analyzing a public policy of U.S. policy in a domestic or international issue area of his or her choice. Examples of issue areas include: the environment, housing and community development, financial regulation, agriculture, health care, education, and energy. The final paper is detailed below, but first, several interim assignments – intended as building blocks toward a final paper of good quality – are explained.

INTERIM ASSIGNMENTS

Due on: Weight in final course grade

Statement of policy area Sept. 20
Annotated bibliography Oct. 4 5%
Getting to Know Your Policy Oct. 11 10%
Issue network Nov. 1 10%
Roundtable Variable 5%

Statement of policy area:
This is to be a brief statement – at least a paragraph and up to one page – of the policy area on which you’ll write your paper. State what the policy area is, a little bit about timely questions in the area, and why you are attracted to study it. Some policy areas are very broad and complex, so it would be necessary to narrow the topic within the area. For example, within environmental policy, you might choose to focus on air quality OR water quality; within health care policy, you might want to know about Medicare in particular, or Medicaid, or children’s health, etc. If you choose a policy area that is predominantly handled at the state level – electric utility regulation, for example – you would narrow the topic by choosing a particular state. If you’ll be narrowing the topic within a general policy area, identify your focus in this statement.

Choosing a topic that is MANAGEABLE is a crucial consideration at the beginning of a research project, so please feel free to consult with me as you identify and narrow your area. Also, in the interest of getting you started on the right track with a manageable project, I may require some revision upon looking over your statement.

There is no separate grade for this statement, however for every day it is late (weekends included), one point will be subtracted from the score on your final paper.

Getting to Know Your Policy

The aim of this paper is for you to acquire and convey some basic information about your policy initiative. The paper is largely descriptive; it requires that you answer the who, what when where and how questions related to your initiative. The information will serve as background information for later papers in which you apply explanatory and analytical concepts from the course readings and discussion.

Specifically, in no more than four pages, you should provide the following information about your policy initiative:

• The purpose of the policy initiative.
• The importance of the policy initiative.
• The starting and ending dates of the initiative, along with other important key dates. (For example: On this date, President so and so did such and such. Representative blah and Senator blah blah introduced their bill into their respective chambers. On such and such a date, the House bill was referred to this committee…).
• The main controversy surrounding the initiative. Discussion of this controversy should include a description of the relevant groups (outside or inside government) involved in the controversy. Your discussion should also note who seemed to be the primary movers and shakers and what the context was that prompted the policy in the first place.

Annotated bibliography

In general, an annotated bibliography is a list of secondary sources on some topic with a brief discussion of each source. Please begin working on an annotated bib of secondary print sources that you plan to use for your course paper during the second week of the semester. Note that you’ll be starting before your "statement of policy area" is approved. This is because you will have to do some preliminary research to choose a policy area and narrow it.

For this interim assignment, please prepare an annotated bibliography with at least six print sources that meet the requirements above – there may be more entries. These are to be sources upon which you will rely in writing your final paper. Each entry should have one or two paragraphs summarizing the piece, and indicate preliminarily how this source will be useful for your paper. For example, you might find a piece that is really effective in helping you identify the participants in the issue network – indicate that in your annotated bibliography. Another piece might be good for conveying how the issue area got on the policy agenda in the first place; another might be one on which you plan to rely primarily for identifying the technical content of policy in your area. In short – think about how you will use the material you are finding. Pay attention to finding material that permits you to cover all required aspects of the paper.

Each entry should begin with the citation for the piece in proper APA or Chicago Manual format, as it will appear in the bibliography of your final paper. This means you will have to consider documentation format well before the paper is due, and it will save you time in writing up the final paper.

Note: You may find sources that you want to use for your final paper after turning in this annotated bibliography; you do not have to revise the annotated bib to account for these additional sources. Just be sure to include everything you use in the actual bibliography of the final paper.

Issue network:

An issue network is the set of public and private groups that are active in a particular policy area. Issue networks typically include – at a minimum – legislative committees, public agencies, interest and advocacy groups, think tanks. (We’ll be covering issue networks in class before this assignment is due.) For this assignment, use the internet as well as your research in print sources to identify the actors in the issue network in the policy area you are studying. Major participants in the issue networks of prominent policy areas usually have websites; find those websites. You may run into some important actors that do not have a presence on the internet; include these actors in your issue network anyway.

Hand in a paper of about three to four pages, in good prose (i.e., not just a list), with a brief description of each actor in the issue network.
 
 

Roundtable:

A roundtable is a group presentation of the findings in a particular issue area by class members who have chosen that issue area for their final papers. The roundtable presentation should include the same components that a final paper includes. Groups can decide for themselves just how to present the material; feel free to be creative within the constraint that required components must be clearly covered. If you’ll need equipment, let me know ahead of time so necessary arrangements can be made.

Be sure to include some visuals – at a minimum, a chart or list of the issue network actors. Other helpful aids might include a list of important dates, or an overview outline of your presentation.

There are a couple of things about group projects that students often find problematic. One difficulty is getting the members of the group together. We will overcome this by using some class time for groups to meet; follow-up communication outside of class will probably be needed as well, but this can be done with phones and email if in-class preparation time is well-used. A second problem that sometimes crops up is that somebody is regarded as having shirked and failed to contribute a fair share of the work. We will address that problem by having all members in each group do a confidential, sealed evaluation of the other members in the group. Each roundtable will receive one grade, but that will be a starting point from which some points may be deducted from an individual’s grade if it is clear that the person did not help much.

FINAL PAPER Weight in final course grade: 30%

For the final paper, please select a substantive public policy area that interests you – and is approved by me. Write a paper of 15 to 20 pages in length that

• introduces the policy area: what is the problem or situation addressed?
• identifies actors in the issue network and discusses their positions [What is/are goals of various policy advocates? What programmatic approaches to achieving goals are advanced? Are their differences among policy advocates regarding goals and methods of achieving them? Are there any differences in their public philosophies?]
• summarizes the development over time of substantive policy in the area. [Include discussion of foundational statute(s) if there is/are one or more. Use the steps of the policy process to organize this historical discussion. Also note whether institutions mattered in the development of the policy and, if so, how they mattered].
• identifies the questions in the area that are currently in dispute, if there are some.

Documentation: The paper must have proper footnotes or in-text references and a proper bibliography or works cited page. You may use Chicago Manual (also called "Turabian") or APA style – that’s it: use one of these two and in books and library handouts.

Writing: The quality of the writing counts! The paper must be well-structured and well-written; mechanics must be correct. It is not cheating to get colleagues, or the writing center tutors, to read your drafts and provide feedback; it is, rather, advisable and entirely professional.