Policy Analysis and Planning

In the real world, people are trying to answer the question: "What is to be done?" The main purpose of this course is to provide students with general approaches for asking and answering that question in the policy world. Although we will consider several key components of the policy analysis process-define problems, construct policy design alternatives, select criteria to evaluate alternatives, and confront the trade-offs-we will devote a substantial portion of the course to constructing policy designs and selecting criteria for evaluation. Students will write four critical analyses pertaining to different components of the policy analysis framework. These analyses build on one another into a final policy position paper.