Public policy analysis

The study of politics and the social world inevitably involves an understanding of what governments and public institutions do. Yet, how do we get such knowledge? This course introduces students with the different ways in which public policy can be analysed. Following the predominant approaches in social and political science, public policy is theorized as a cycle consisting of several stages. During the course, students will learn about different perspectives from which public policy can be analysed; about how different governance structures contribute to shaping the policy cycle; about the importance of understanding who or what set a policy on the public agenda; about the causes and consequences of different policy designs; about the challenges linked to policy implementation; about how to evaluate public policy; and about how public policy analysis can be debated.