Pol Strategy and Gov Signature

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The goal of this course is to enable you to become a "player” in the politics of policymaking. Policy politics involves an array of actors playing various roles, inside and outside government. Playing any of these roles effectively requires that you understand how policy and politics interact and learn how to navigate the process. Policy politics is different from policy analysis. Policy analysis typically follows a straightforward path, grounded in evidence: identify a problem; develop and weigh various options to address it, and—based on policymakers’ objectives, values and judgment on tradeoffs—recommend a specific solution. By contrast, policy politics is contentious, and its outcomes, though affected by evidence, are dominated by interests and influence—that is, by the exercise of political power. This class will explore how this process works, connect you to different types of policy practitioners and engage you in the process itself, through a simulation of the development and promotion of a political campaign proposal. Over the course of the semester, small student groups will select an issue, formulate a policy goal, assess alternative policy solutions, develop a political and communications strategy to promote the solution they prefer, and both educate and persuade a 2026 congressional candidate (role-played by the professor or a guest) to adopt the recommended course of action . You will leave the class with a better sense of how policy politics works, the roles you can play in it, and what it takes to be successful in each— and with better skills to pursue whatever role you adopt as your own.