Public Policy and Administration

3 credits · Peabody College - Professional

Public Policy and Administration is an introduction to public decision-making, and what public officials within government and, by extension, the citizens represented by those officials, choose to do (or not do) about public problems. The course engages with the practice of public policy and administration and the theories that explain the policy process. It emphasizes four areas in particular: 1.How the structure of institutions matters for the decisions they make, 2.What constraints policymakers face in making decisions on behalf of the public, 3.What strategies can be used to overcome those constraints, 4.What tools real participants in the policy process use in implementing those strategies. Among these tools, the course features an emphasis on public policy writing-that is, how to frame, organize, and produce informative documents for policy audiences. [3]