Law, Policy and Social Order

Catalog description

The aim of this course is to provide policy researchers with a set of conceptual frameworks for analyzing the political environment of public policy and policy research, and to practice forming effective strategies for policy analysis, program evaluation, policy design, and advocacy. The concepts, skills, and analytical tools students learn in the course rest upon a foundation of economic principles, institutional analysis and, to a lesser extent, political and social psychology. They identify patterns of behavior and outcomes, ways of thinking about those patterns and outcomes, and methods of analysis that facilitate understanding and prediction, and, ultimately, the shaping of strategies to improve the success of policy researchers in their professional life.