Public Policy 606

• Public policy


  Policies that are made by governments and public authorities to address issues of public concern
• Public policy actors


  • Politicians and policy-makers
  • Bureaucrats
  • Interest groups
  • Epistemic communities
  • Citizens
• Politicians and policy-makers


  • They are the only democratically elected actors and are meant to represent the will of the majority of the voters
  • They contend for power in electoral competitions to pursue specific agendas that align with their beliefs
  • They can listen to public opinion to decide what to put on the governmental agenda
  • They formulate and decide on the policies to be enacted
  • They direct bureaucrats on how to implement policies
  • They can listen to the experts' evaluation of the enacted policies to decide on whether to continue, modify or terminate a policy
• Bureaucrats


  • They are the behind-the-scenes arm of politicians
  • They initiate policies by placing them on the political agenda
  • They make sure that the proposed policies pass through parliament
  • They implement and enact policies once they have been legitimised
  • They have discretion in how policies should be implemented, thus curtailing the power of central policy-makers
• Interest groups


  Any non-governmental organisation that attempts to influence the policy process to see their interest reflected in the policy output
• Types of interest groups


  • Economic groups (powerful business interests)
  • Professional groups (defending the interests of working categories)
  • Public interest groups (non-governmental organisations)
• Epistemic communities

  • Groups of experts from academia, research centres and think-tanks
  • They help policy-makers make informed decisions through evidence-based policy-making
  • They contribute significantly to policy evaluation and impact assessment
• Public opinion and voters

  • They can exert important influence in policy-making through voting, public demonstrations, and other forms of political participation
• Evidence-based policy-making


  Where experts help policy-makers make informed decisions
• Epistemic communities have had little success in strongly influencing policy due to the environment of uncertainty and ambiguity surrounding much policy-making
• Experts


  Can contribute significantly to policy evaluation and impact assessment
• Epistemic communities generate new knowledge for policy evaluations and recommendations


  May also be curtailing their very policy-making influence
• Public opinion


  Can open up the window of opportunity for policy-makers to act
• Recent examples of public opinion influencing policy

  • Economic sanctions against Russia
  • The 'green turn' in several policies
• Referenda


  A way in which voters can have a more direct influence on policy-making, although their results seldom bind policy-makers
• Examples of referenda influencing policy

  • Brexit
  • Legalisation of marijuana in certain US states
  • Ban on fracking in several countries
• US Supreme Court


  Holds important quasi-law-making powers in the US common law system
• Widely known Supreme Court decisions

  • Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
  • Roe v. Wade (1973)
  • Citizens United (2010)
  • Shelby County v. Holder (2013)
• A wide range of actors can exert influence in policy-making, but not all to the same extent, nor during the same stage of the policy process
• Actors that can influence policy-making

  • Citizens
  • Interest groups
  • Bureaucrats
  • Experts
• Citizens are loudest in the agenda-setting stage, interest groups can best influence the formulation of policies, bureaucrats have the most discretion in implementation, and experts play an important role in policy evaluation and learning
• Case studies provide helpful teaching tools to capture the complexity of administrative problems from an action-oriented perspective
• With increasingly complex policy problems at hand, more interdisciplinary, interactive, and discursive approaches to teaching are also in demand
• Case method


  Offers a broad variety of options for teaching programs, ranging from short case illustrations or vignettes to full-length case studies
• Attached to various types of case materials are different didactic approaches that pursue different pedagogic logics and are likely to make different contributions to in-classroom teaching
• Case method in teaching public administration

  • Comes at a cost and requires extra capacity, higher time budgets as well as new qualifications and roles of teachers plus a good fit of student (self)-selection and teaching objectives
  • If meaningfully utilized, it enhances our capacity to prepare (future) executives for complex environments
• Case studies represent an established approach in research and teaching across a wide range of academic disciplines
• In social science research, the merits of the case study approach are particularly appreciated by advocates of qualitative methods who value their high degree of internal validity and the close link between empirical data and their context, including institutions and actors
• In social science teaching, particularly in the domain of management training, the case method has been highlighted and praised for their problem-oriented nature and interactive potential in the classroom
• The full range of different types of case material (ranging from short case illustrations or vignettes to full-length case studies) has to be realized in order to assess their specific merits in the classroom
• The case method as a didactic tool can be used for different purposes in different settings of public sector education and training
• The case method can serve as an antithesis to the orthodoxy of lecturer-centered formal instruction in the classroom
• The case method epitomizes the inductive approach as it rejects the doctrine that students should first learn passively, and then, having learned, should apply knowledge
• The key question is more often than not couched in terms of how to balance the elements of deductive and inductive approaches over the course of a degree program, rather than making an "either/or" decision
• The case method may help to illustrate, test or develop theories, but also to facilitate analytical and reflexive thinking or to provide a basis for simulations and practical experiences in the classroom
• The potential benefits of teaching full-fledged comprehensive cases can be best exploited in courses of study designed for practitioners, as is the case with executive education and mid-career programs
• The case method appears to lend itself to teaching environments in which pre-trained executives need to be prepared for the handling of ambiguous and complex situations
• Executive education and mid-career programs

  • Participants bring first degrees in academic disciplines and years of professional experience
  • Potential benefits of teaching full-fledged comprehensive cases can be best exploited
• Interactive and discursive teaching atmosphere

  • Endorses and relies on horizontal learning among peers
  • Denies the usefulness of simple, unidirectional associations or clear-cut "how-to-do" lessons cascading down from instructor to student
• With more mid-career programs and executive trainings being offered, with more but also shorter training stages over the span of a work life and increased lateral entrants from other professions to the public sector, adequate teaching philosophies and didactic instruments are in need to offer student-oriented and interactive teaching methods that are easily accessible to professionals and still qualify for academic degree programs