Policy Analysis and Planning

Catalog description

The course will cover the theoretical issues in and basic methods of policy analysis and planning (prospective policy analysis). P ADM 535 Policy Analysis and Planning (3) Policy analysis is a systematic inquiry into the nature of policy problems and public policies. It offers a set of principles and methods that can be used in constructing public policies and evaluating their outcomes. This course covers the theoretical approaches and methods in prospective policy analysis and planning. Emphasis will be on the quantitative/analytical methods, but qualitative methods in individual and group problem solving and planning will also be covered. These methods and techniques will be discussed in their theoretical contexts. The course will be divided into three sections. The first section will provide students with an overview of the nature of public policy problems, history of policy analysis, and the current competing theories. The second section will focus on the problems in and methods of gatering and disseminating policy-analytical information. In the policy-analytical process, information is gathered and disseminated in political and cultural contexts; the characteristics of this process and its contexts will be covered in this section. In the third section of the class, the stages and some of the basic methods of policy analysis will be discussed. The focus will be on problem structuring and forecasting methods, cost-benefit analysis, decision trees, and implementation design.