Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

COURSE DETAILS:

This course will explore theories and concepts of political influences on social and economic policy at a level suitable to conduct original research. Students will apply theoretical perspectives to understand how some problems get placed on the policy agenda and how others get sidetracked, why particular policy instruments become favoured tools for serving the public interest and others remain unfamiliar or uncomfortable to many policy actors. Analysis will also consider how policy instruments are used in implementation, and how public programs get evaluated. These perspectives will be gained through exploring the literature in political economy, the new institutionalism, and organization theory. Analytical efforts will then be directed to selected policy domains. In order to successfully explain how public policy gets made in Canada or another Western democracy, students will need to assemble the theories encountered during the first half of this course into a conceptual framework that can be applied to empirical evidence, thus revealing the organizational logic of public bureaucracy, private enterprise, the institutions of the state and the state’s relationship to the international political economy.

One three hour seminar each week.

Combined with POL 46

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

Readings will be drawn from the scholarly literature that is accessible through SFU’s library databases. Accessing these readings will be part of each student’s research skills development. A reading list will be distributed at the first class.