Political Science 351 (99-3) -  The Public Policy Process


FINAL EXAM PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS
M. Howlett

NOTE: Five of these questions will be on the final exam. You will be asked to answer three.


1. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the policy cycle model of the policy process.

2. What are the principle elements of traditional approaches to political theory? How applicable are the insights of these theories to the study of public policy-making?

3. What is a policy subsystem? How are agents and structures related in this concept? What is its relevance to public policy-making?

4. What is a policy instrument? How can these be classified?

5. Discuss and evaluate the principle elements of Kingdon's model of agenda-setting.

6. What is a policy network? What is a policy community? How can these be identified? Discuss how they are related and how they affect the process of policy formulation.

7 Smith and May argue that we must move beyond the debate between rationalism and incrementalism. Why? What is wrong with these models and their understanding of the decision-making stage of public policy-making? Can their limitations be overcome?

8. Why do government prefer certain types of policy instruments over others? Describe the efforts that have been made to outline the factors involved in policy instrument choice. What does the example of Canadian transport de-regulation described in Campbell and Pal tell us about these theories?

9. Do governments learn from policy evaluations? What sorts of lessons can they learn? What does the example of the federal general election of 1993 tell us about the role elections play in policy evaluation and vice-versa?

10. How do policies change? Is a paradigm model appropriate in the discussion of the process of change in policy styles?