Department of Political Science
School of Public and International Affairs

North Carolina State University

PS 310--Introduction to Public Policy—Fall 2007
Professor Thomas Birkland
William T. Kretzer Distinguished Professor of Public Policy

Caldwell 219, tom_birkland@ncsu.edu, 919-513-7799

Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:30 to 11:30, or by appointment. I am usually in my office by 9 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This syllabus and updates are available by following the link from http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tabirkla/index.html. Students who need another copy of the syllabus should look to the web version first. This document will change during the semester--please check it often.

Syllabus Update History

Introduction and Overview

This course is an introduction to the public policy process in the United States. An important part of the course will involve developing an understanding of what "political" and "public policy" mean. We will then consider 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. We will primarily examine policymaking at the national level, but we will also look at examples at the state and local level as well.

As you will learn in this course, the public policy process is not solely or even primarily about the sort of “politics” you read in the papers or hear castigated in the news media. Rather, the making of public policy is rather more complex and, I think, more interesting than TV, newspapers, and most civics textbooks would have you believe. I believe this course will therefore give you greater insight into how public policy—that is, government decisions to do or not do something about a problem—are made.

This course is not a survey of current events, although some sense of current social and political events and trends is important to any student of public policy. Rather, while you and I both know something about policy areas that are the most interesting to us; what’s important to a student and analyst of public policy is the tools one uses to understand and analyze policy. To learn these tools, you will learn a great deal of the theory of public policy formation. Understanding theory helps us to better ask questions about the process, and to improve our own skills in public policy.

Course Goals

• understand what we mean by "public policy";
• understand how the study of public policy relates to political science and other social sciences;
• be able to apply your knowledge of the policy process to any issue or topic that may confront you in your professional or personal life; and
• be able to intelligently analyze policies, and to find the strengths and weaknesses in partisan or news media depictions of policy issues;
• learn and enhance your critical and analytical thinking skills.

You probably have your own goals as well for taking this course--let me know why you are taking this course and what you hope to learn from it.

Course Policies and Procedures

Student Responsibilities

I outline your main responsibilities here. Of course, this is not a comprehensive list—I generally expect that you will conduct yourselves like adult learners. This doesn’t mean that college should be all work and no play, but this does mean that you need to meet your responsibilities to my class and your other classes as well. If you do the work, you will do well; fail to do the work, and your grades will be poor. There is no extra credit, and no grades for effort, and I do not create “study” guides (in reality, “cramming guides”). It is unimportant whether your friends take half as long to study for this course and get just as good grades. The criterion for grading is performance.

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• Attend class: Students who fail to attend the lectures will miss important information and discussion, and will therefore receive lower grades in any case. I will not take formal attendance but will note chronic absences. Those arriving late or leaving early will be counted as absent from class. If the university is open, then class will be held, and no absences will be excused.
• Do the work.  I grade on performance, not “effort.” You must demonstrate that you know the material and can apply it. If you believe you have been graded wrongly on any assignment, you may appeal to me, in writing (email is best) no sooner than 24 hours and not later than 7 days after receiving a grade. Such appeals must discuss the substance of the assignment. They may not be appeals to “effort” or “fairness” or your “need” for a better mark.
  
  No excuses will be accepted for not doing the work, including but not limited to job obligations, family problems, your workload in other courses, your inability to purchase books, computer crashes, car problems, printer problems, or any other problems. Because this is a university course, you are expected to read, study, and engage with the course material at that level. This also means that not everything covered in the books will be discussed in lectures, but you are responsible for any assigned reading in the books. Lectures are held to enrich the material covered in books, not simply reread it.
• Be courteous to the instructor and your classmates: The most disrespectful act you can do in class is answer your cell phone, or even to allow it to ring. Students whose phones ring audibly during class and who do not immediately silence the phone will be marked absent for the day, and will be asked to leave for the day. Students who place or receive cell phone calls during class will immediately earn a failing grade for the course. If your phone does ring during class, immediately turn it off.
  
  Students who talk during lecture will be asked once to stop. A second request to stop talking will result in an unexcused absence for the day, and you will be asked to leave the class. Do not read magazines or newspapers or surf the web during class. Do not send and receive text messages on your phone or whatever device you use to IM. Do not pack up five minutes before class ends. I promise to end the class precisely on time; in exchange, I expect you to be attentive until the end of the period.
  
  If you have a meeting with me, please show up or call to cancel. You do not need an appointment to come to office hours with questions.
• Understand and follow university and class policies. There will be no make-up or extra credit opportunities unless under extraordinary circumstances. I will pursue any case of academic misconduct—plagiarism, cheating, doing work for others, or any misconduct defined by university policy—and appropriate remedies will be applied. 
• For other useful tips on expected behavior in my class and in all your studies—refer to Clemson University’s site, College Survival Skills, http://www.clemson.edu/collegeskills/intro.htm. Pay closest attention to Ten Things You Should Never Say Or Do To Your Instructor: http://www.clemson.edu/collegeskills/sec5pg5.htm. Many of the examples in the College Survival Skills site is specific to Clemson University’s biology program, but all the information here is directly applicable to study skills for all your classes at any college. There are also many services and programs available to you here at NCSU to aid in your success as a student—I urge you to avail yourself of those services as needed, and I am happy to help you identify them.

Instructor Responsibilities

Having laid out my expectations for you, you are entitled to have high expectations of me. In exchange for your attention and cooperation, you can expect me to

• be prompt, prepared, and respectful of all points of view. Respect does not imply, however, that you or I are compelled to uncritically accept every argument. Our goal is to be analytically critical, and to bring evidence and logic to bear on important questions. There is a difference between analysis and personal or ideological attack; by the end of the semester, you will have a finer sense of this difference. But we are all only human, and it is likely that my positions on a public policy issue will reflect my ideological preferences. This is not to say that my position is any more valid than yours—the standard of a good argument in this course is sound evidence in support of an idea. I will weigh arguments on this basis, not on ideology. This does not mean that you cannot make an argument that is consistent with your ideological preferences.
• create an open, stimulating environment for the exchange of ideas and for questioning the underlying assumptions of ideas. In particular, I support and will implement University policies promoting a free exchange of ideas.
• be available for questions or advice. My office hours are listed on this syllabus, and I pledge to be there during those hours. You may wish to call ahead to see if I am there, or stop by my office any time.
• support your right to appeal any grading decision or decision not to give a make up exam. Appeals must be made in writing not sooner than 24 hours after the test was returned to you, and not later than two weeks after the test was returned. .

Other Policies

Use your e-mail. Consistent with the new email communications policy, I will communicate with you via your NCSU email address only. You will be able to forward that mail to an address of your choice, but I require that you communicate with me using an NCSU email account only. This ensures privacy and appropriate communications.

By August 30, send me an e-mail message, from your NCSU address, with the following information:

• your name (very important)
• your year in school and your major
• your home town, and where you went to high school (school name). Because I am new to North Carolina, please tell me a bit about your town.
• why you are taking this course
• your other interests, sports, hobbies, travel experiences. Help us to get to know you better!
• Use e-mail to ask us questions or to communicate with others in the class. Refer to my e-mail tips page [click here] to read about how to effectively use e-mail in a college course or professional environment.

Check your email often (especially the mornings of class days) for messages from about the course. If for some reason I need to cancel class, I will announce this via email.

Accommodation Policy. Reasonable accommodations will be made for students with verifiable disabilities. Any student who feels they may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact the instructor privately to discuss your specific needs. In order to take advantage of available accommodations, students must register with Disability Services for Students at 1900 Student Health Center, Campus Box 7509, 515-7653. http://www.ncsu.edu/provost/offices/affirm_action/dss/.

Academic Misconduct. Cheating, plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. To create a fair and equitable environment, the instructor aggressively enforces the university's policies on academic misconduct. All exams are to be completed individually. Although working together on written assignments to overcome obstacles is encouraged, each student must compose and submit their own written work, unless the assignment is for group work and all members of the group are listed as co-authors. All cases of academic misconduct will be handled as set out in university policies. For additional information see: http://www.ncsu.edu/policies/student_services/student_conduct/POL445.00.1.htm.

Exams and Grading

There will be one take-home midterm exam and one in-class final exam. There will also be an ongoing, semester-length group research project. All students must take both exams; missing one exam will result in a failing grade in the course. The final will be comprehensive.

All exams will be graded on an A, A-, B+, etc. scale, and these marks will be converted to numbers (4.0, 3.7, 3.3, etc.) for grade calculations. Grades are not assigned on a “curve”—unless the class as a whole agrees to apply a proper, normally distributed grading curve, in which for every A an F will be issued, and 68% of grades will be Bs through Ds (16% will be As, and 16% will be Fs). 

Grading Weights

The group project

As you will see in the schedule, a column is labeled "group research." We will be spending a good part of this course doing research on public problems and how they are addressed in the policy process. I will explain this project throughout the semester. The general concept is this: we will track policy issues through the process, from issue and problem identification through implementation. We will start on our own, but will then divide into about five groups, each of which will study a particular policy problem. Depending on what problems we, as a group, decide to study, we may have more than one group study a problem to see if they come up with similar or different findings. This project will require group work and will require reasonably intensive use of library resources, both in person and on line.

I will, in many cases, further explain an assignment through supplementary pages linked to this page. Visit this web site often for this information.

Books and other readings

These books are required and are available at the NCSU bookstore. You’re free to order books online from Barnes and Noble or amazon.com or any other source, if you choose, but if you are reading this for the first time on the first day of class (or later), you should go to the bookstore.

Thomas Birkland, An Introduction to the Policy Process: Theories, Concepts, and Models of Public Policy Making. second edition, 2005. My goal in writing this book was to cover important themes in policymaking in a more readable way. The organization of the course follows the organization of the book. I have made substantial changes between the first and second editions, so the second edition is the assigned text.

Deborah Stone, Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. 2001. This is one of my favorite books on the policy process. Stone begins by contrasting two ways of thinking about politics and policy decisions: the market model, or a model of individual exchanges, and a polis model, which describes decision making as a community, consensus building process. From this base, Stone explores the deeper meanings of terms like “equality,” “liberty,” and “security” in ways you may not have thought about before. The writing style is fairly clear, and I think you will enjoy it.

“Current Events”

I strongly suggest you get into the daily newspaper habit New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/)  or the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/).

Schedule

Please note: this schedule is subject to change as course needs warrant. I will announce changes in class and, in particular, via email.