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Lehrende: Prof. Christian Adam
Veranstaltungsart:
Seminar / Übung
Orga-Einheit: Politics, Administration & International Relations
Anzeige im Stundenplan:
Comp Public P P An.
Semesterwochenstunden:
3
Credits:
6,0
Standort:
Campus der Zeppelin Universität
Unterrichtssprache:
Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl:
5 | 30
Prioritätsschema: Standard-Priorisierung
Inhalte:
This seminar familiarizes students not only with empirical variation in the policy choices of different countries. It also discusses policy persistence, diffusion, convergence, and policy accumulation as some of the most prominent empirical phenomena studied in the field of Policy Analysis.
Policy Analysis is characterized by a dual ambition. On the one hand, it pursues a theoretical objective by trying to understand and explain patterns of policy change and persistence. This theoretical ambition is reflected in research questions, such as: how do governments try to solve the most pressing problems of our times? Why are they much more active in some policy areas than in others? And why do some governments try to solve the very same problem differently than others? On the other hand, Policy Analysis is not only rooted but still pursues normative objectives. Based on the evaluation of policy performance, it is trying to normatively prescribe „how to do public policy“ in the best possible way.
This seminar reflects Policy Analysis’s binary objective. It introduces students to the most important theoretical approaches to explaining policy dynamics, which includes historical institutionalism, punctuated equilibrium theory, multiple streams analysis, or the advocacy coalition framework. Yet, in addition, it also seeks to provide a basis for the normative prescription of how to properly design policies, how to implement policies, how to evaluate policies, and how to coordinate public policies.
Within the general context of Western democracies, the seminar sets two sectoral focal points: morality policy and public health policy. Morality policy includes the regulation of social value conflicts with an inherently tight connection to core values and first principles. Typical examples include the regulation of homosexuality and same-sex marriage, abortion, euthanasia, or prostitution. Most Western democracies seemed to have been „driving down the road“ towards ever more permissive regulations on these issues; albeit at very different speeds. Recently, however, many of these issues have not only been rhetorically revived. We even observe active and sometimes successful attempts of restrictive policy reforms. The restrictive turn in abortion policy in many U.S. states is one of the most prominent examples of this development. Similarly, public health policy has started to play a much more important political and societal role in recent years. This is not only because of the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, attempts to legalize Cannabis in many countries, New Zealand’s move towards a general smoking ban as well as the introduction of sugar taxes, color-coded food labels, and restrictions on alcohol consumption are examples of the political attempt to improve public health with the help of policies that were often considered „off-limits“ within liberal democracies for a long time. Both, morality and public health policy provide students with many opportunities to delve into theoretical, methodological, and normative questions on public policy.
Lernziele:
Introductory Readings:
Since this course often deals with issues of morality policy and public health policy, students are encouraged to gain a broad overview of these topics by reading two brief introductory papers on each of these topics:
Morality (& Gender) Policy:
• Adam, C. (2023). Morality Policy. In: van Gerven, M., Rothmayr Allison, C., Schubert, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Public Policy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90434-0_73-1
• Mazur, A.G., Engeli, I. (2023). Gender Policy. In: van Gerven, M., Rothmayr Allison, C., Schubert, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Public Policy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-90434-0_20-1
Public Health Policy
• Nicole F. Bernier, Carole Clavier, Public health policy research: making the case for a political science approach, Health Promotion International, Volume 26, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 109–116, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daq079
• Kothari, A., Smith, M.J. (2022). Public Health Policymaking, Politics, and Evidence. In: Fafard, P., Cassola, A., de Leeuw, E. (eds) Integrating Science and Politics for Public Health. Palgrave Studies in Public Health Policy Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98985-9_4
Weitere Informationen zu den Prüfungsleistungen:
Students complete a mid-term task that comprises a classroom presentation.
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