Policy (disambiguation)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Public policy (disambiguation))Jump to navigationJump to searchFor policies regarding Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:List of policies, Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines or Wikipedia:Five pillars.
| Look up policy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
A policy is a principle or rule that guides decisions in order to achieve a rational outcome.
Policy may also refer to:
Contents
Principle or rule
- Domestic policy
- Economic policy
- Education policy
- Energy policy
- Environmental policy
- Foreign policy
- Health policy
- Human resource policies
- Information policy
- Immigration policy
- Macroeconomic policy
- Military policy
- Monetary policy
- Privacy policy
- Public policy, government action
- Public policy doctrine
- Science policy
- Security policy
- Social policy
- Urban planning, urban policy
Music
- Policy (Martha Davis album), 1987 album by Martha Davis
- Policy (Will Butler album), 2015 debut solo album by Arcade Fire member Will Butler
Other uses
- Insurance policy, a contract between the insurer and the insured which determines the claims which the insurer is legally required to pay
- Policy game or policy racket, a form of illegal gambling or illegal lottery
See also
- Guideline (disambiguation)
- Separation of mechanism and policy: a design principle in computer science
| This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Policy. |
MPPA Curriculum
Curriculum Overview
The Master’s in Public Policy and Administration requires the successful completion of 13 courses to obtain a degree. Students complete nine core courses, three elective courses corresponding to a chosen area of specialization, and a capstone class (498) or independent thesis (590). Current students should refer to curriculum requirements in place at time of entry into the program.Core courses:
MPPA 401 Research Methods
This course provides students with a basic understanding of research design and qualitative and quantitative research methodologies frequently used in social science and policy research. In addition, this course explores the methods and tools essential to writing graduate-level policy papers within the framework of current topics in public policy and administration. The course content includes research design, research question formation, observation and interview based research methods, survey development and research writing. Students will have the opportunity to apply methods to pursue a policy-relevant research topic of their own design. An overview of publicly available quantitative data will be provided, and comparative policy research will be discussed. Students should expect a rigorous workload in this course.
MPPA 402 Elements of Public Finance and Budgeting
Public budgeting is one of the most important responsibilities of democratic governance. The budget defines policy, sets priorities, allocates scarce public resources, and distributes the burden of paying for public goods and services. The budget is inescapably both a political document and a management tool. The purpose of this course is to understand the complexities of the budget process and its central role in both democratic institutions and the profession of public administration. Students will be introduced to the public budgetary process and to key budget theories, practices, and methodologies. The budget structure and process will be reviewed as well as the role of the public administrator and other participants in the process. The course will also examine politics in the budget process and the role of interest groups in decision-making; more specifically, the role of politics in both establishing public spending priorities and in distributing the burden of taxes and fees. Lastly, students will learn about concepts and methodologies relating to program cost analysis and how the budget may be used as a management tool.
MPPA 403 Fundamentals of Public Administration
This course is an introduction to the basic skills useful to public administrators and policy analysts seeking to work in an analytical or managerial position in the public or not-for profit-sectors. This course is structured to introduce students to both the principles and contextual constraints that form the environment of the modern public administrator. It will cover a basic understanding of the process, policy, and politics of public administration and public management at the national, state, and local level. Fundamental theories, practices, and concepts that contribute to the administration and understanding of complex public sector organizations are explored, as well as basic practices and techniques of modern public administration. The course assumes a basic foundation in political science theory, public policy, or public administration usually garnered at the undergraduate level as well as a working knowledge of contemporary issues that confront governments today.
MPPA 404 Microeconomics for Public Policy & Administration
Economics is about choice, and microeconomics is the study of resource allocation choices, beginning with how consumers and producers make choices. This course is aimed at developing student understanding of microeconomic theory, especially as it concerns the relationship between the market economy and public policy. Topics include consumer behavior and the theory of demand; production, cost, supply functions; choices under uncertainty, insurance; competitive equilibrium; subsidies, taxes, price controls; monopoly and monopsony; price discrimination and public utility pricing; monopolistic competition; general equilibrium theory and welfare economics; information theory; and public goods, externalities and market failure.
MPPA 405 Statistics for Research
This course teaches students the fundamentals of measuring political data, summarizing observations, and analyzing contingency tables. Descriptive statistics, including central tendency, dispersion, and data display; probability; distributions, including binomial and normal; inference, including confidence intervals and hypothesis testing; correlation; bivariate regression; contingency tables and chi-square.
Students will do homework using SPSS, a statistical software package. SPSS is installed in some Northwestern computer labs and can be rented and downloaded to your personal computer. The Graduate Pack is sufficient for class.
MPPA 406 Program Evaluation and Policy Analysis
This course will expose students to a set of tools and principles that fall under the heading of “analytic methods.” These methods help public policy and program analysts systematically value decisions, improve the decision-making process (and hopefully the resultant decisions), value inputs and outcomes, handle uncertainty, and compare aspects of public policy and systems that might not otherwise appear to be comparable. Topics include discounting techniques, cost-benefit analysis, decision theory, difference equations, and elements of microeconomic analysis.
MPPA 407 Scope and Theory of Public Policy
This course is an introduction to the public policy process in the United States. It focuses on developing an understanding of what “political” and “public policy” mean and how public policy is made. The course considers agenda setting, decision making theory and methods of analyzing policy outcomes. Course materials will provide students with the analytical framework to explore why some problems reach the public agenda, why some solutions are adopted and others rejected, and why some policies appear to succeed while others appear to fail. It will examine policy making primarily at the national level but will also look at examples at the state and local level.
MPPA 408 Public Organization Theory and Management
This course focuses on organization theory and management as it applies primarily to public organizations. The unique environment that public organizations face will be emphasized. Students will study a range of theories grounded in the traditional literature over time and leading to contemporary theories and modern application in the public sector. The course requires students to critically examine public organizations and leadership using theories and concepts studied during the class.
MPPA 418 Ethics and Leadership
This course will examine relevant theory and research regarding ethics and leadership in public organizations and provide an opportunity for students to develop a personal foundation for ethical leadership. Students will also look at ethics and leadership from an organizational and systemic level while applying learning to normative questions and case studies.
MPPA 498 Capstone course or MPPA 590 Thesis Research
MPPA 498 Capstone
The capstone project course is the culmination of the MPPA program and demonstrates to faculty a student’s mastery of the curriculum and core competencies in the public policy and administration field. Working both in small groups and individually, students complete a comprehensive project chosen in conjunction with their instructor. Students are individually assessed and graded throughout duration of class. Students should retain all course material from previous classes in the program, including textbooks, to successfully complete assignments.
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Public policy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to navigationJump to searchThis article is about government action. Policy, both public and private, is a broader concept. The article on public policy doctrine discusses the use of the phrase ‘public policy’ in legal doctrine. For other uses, see Public policy (disambiguation).
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Public policy is the principled guide to action taken by the administrative executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues, in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs.
Contents
Overview
The foundation of public policy is composed of national constitutional laws and regulations. Further substrates include both judicialinterpretations and regulations which are generally authorized by legislation. Public policy is considered strong when it solves problems efficiently and effectively, serves and supports governmental institutions and policies, and encourages active citizenship.[1]
Other scholars define public policy as a system of “courses of action, regulatory measures, laws, and funding priorities concerning a given topic promulgated by a governmental entity or its representatives.”[2] Public policy is commonly embodied in “constitutions, legislative acts, and judicial decisions.”[3]
In the United States, this concept refers not only to the result of policies, but more broadly to the decision-making and analysis of governmental decisions. As an academic discipline, public policy is studied by professors and students at public policy schools of major universities throughout the country. The U.S. professional association of public policy practitioners, researchers, scholars, and students is the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.
Government actions and process
Public policy making can be characterized as a dynamic, complex, and interactive system through which public problems are identified and countered by creating new public policy or by reforming existing public policy.[4]
Public problems can originate in endless ways and require different policy responses (such as regulations, subsidies, Import quota|quotas, and laws) on the local, national, or international level.[5]
Government holds a legal monopoly to initiate or threaten physical force to achieve its ends[6].
Public policy making is a continuous process that has many feedback loops. Verification and program evaluation are essential to the functioning of this system.[7]
The public problems that influence public policy making can be of economic, social, or political nature.[8]
Each system is influenced by different public problems and issues, and has different stakeholders; as such, each requires different public policy.[7]
In public policy making, numerous individuals, corporations, non-profit organizations and interest groups compete and collaborate to influence policymakers to act in a particular way.[9]
The large set of actors in the public policy process, such as politicians, civil servants, lobbyists, domain experts, and industry or sector representatives, use a variety of tactics and tools to advance their aims, including advocating their positions publicly, attempting to educate supporters and opponents, and mobilizing allies on a particular issue.[5]
Many actors can be important in the public policy process, but government officials ultimately choose public policy in response to the public issue or problem at hand. In doing so, government officials are expected to meet public sector ethics and take the needs of all project stakeholders into account.[7]
Since societies have changed in the past decades, the public policy making system changed too. In the 2010s, public policy making is increasingly goal-oriented, aiming for measurable results and goals, and decision-centric, focusing on decisions that must be taken immediately.[7]
Furthermore, mass communications and technological changes such as the widespread availability of the Internet have caused the public policy system to become more complex and interconnected.[10] The changes pose new challenges to the current public policy systems and pressures leaders to evolve to remain effective and efficient.[7]
Academic discipline
Main article: Policy Studies
As an academic discipline, public policy brings in elements of many social science fields and concepts, including economics, sociology, political economy, social policy, program evaluation, policy analysis, and public management, all as applied to problems of governmental administration, management, and operations.[11] At the same time, the study of public policy is distinct from political science or economics, in its focus on the application of theory to practice. While the majority of public policy degrees are master’s and doctoral degrees, there are several universities that offer undergraduate education in public policy.
Traditionally, the academic field of public policy focused on domestic policy. However, the wave of economic globalization that occurred in the late 20th and early 21st centuries created a need for a subset of public policy that focused on global governance, especially as it relates to issues that transcend national borders such as climate change, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and economic development.[12] Consequently, many traditional public policy schools had to adjust their curricula to better suit this new policy landscape, as well as develop entirely new curricula altogether.[13]
See also
| Wikiquote has quotations related to: Public policy |
- Advocacy
- Advocacy evaluation
- Eightfold Path (policy analysis)
- Harold Lasswell
- List of public policy topics by country
- List of public administration schools
- Mandate (politics)
- Overton window
- Public comment
- Public policy school
- Public Criminology
References
- ^ “Characteristics of Successful Public Policy”. Norwich University Public Administration. Norwich University Public Administration. Retrieved 24 November 2014.
- ^ “Definitions of Public Policy and the Law”. mainweb-v.musc.edu.
- ^ Schuster, W. Michael (31 December 2008). “For the Greater Good: The Use of Public Policy Considerations in Confirming Chapter 11 Plans of Reorganization” – via papers.ssrn.com.
- ^ John, Peter (1998). Analysing Public Policy. Continuum.
- ^ Jump up to:a b Sharkansky, Ira; R. Hofferbert. “Dimensions of State Politics, Economics, and Public Policy”. The American Political Science Review.
- ^ Dusza, Karl (1989). “Max Weber’s conception of the state”. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society. 3: 71–105. doi:10.1007/BF01430691.
- ^ Jump up to:a b c d e Thei, Geurts; Be Informed (2010). “Public Policy: The 21st Century Perspective”.
- ^ Hill, Michael (2005). Public Policy Process. Pearson.
- ^ Kilpatrick
- ^ Schramm, Wilbur (165). The Process and Effects of mass communication. ISBN 978-0252001970.
- ^ Pellissery, Sony (2015). Public Policy. The SAGE Encyclopedia of World Poverty. Sage.
- ^ http://www.gppi.net/fileadmin/gppi/Global_Public_Policy_Foreign_Affairs.pdf
- ^ Stone, Diane. “Global public policy, transnational policy communities, and their networks.” Policy studies journal 36, no. 1 (2008): 19-38
Further reading
- Gilbert, Brett Anitra; David B. Audretsch, McDougall, Patricia P. (2004), The Emergence of Entrepreneurship Policy, Small Business Economics 22
- Cohen, Nissim (2012) “Policy entrepreneurs and the design of public policy: Conceptual framework and the case of the National Health Insurance Law in Israel” Journal of Social Research & Policy, 3 (1): 5-26.
- David B. Audretsch; Grilo, Isabel; Thurik, A. Roy (2007), Explaining entrepreneurship and the role of policy: a framework, in: David Audretsch, Isabel Grilo and A. Roy Thurik (eds.), Handbook of Research on Entrepreneurship Policy, Edward Elgar Publishing
- David B. Audretsch and Beckmann, Iris A.M. (2007), From Small Business to Entrepreneurship Policy, in: David Audretsch, Isabel Grilo and A. Roy Thurik (eds.), Handbook of Research on Entrepreneurship Policy, Edward Elgar Publishing
- Considine, Mark (2005). Making Public Policy. Polity Press.
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