My approach to the study of public policy divides the work to be done into three parts. The first could be called something like "policy skills" or "conflict structure" of "seeing the underlying premise." I don't know anyone else who offers this and I think it is a very valuable skill--at least it has been valuable to me.
The second emphasis is on the policy process. How do new ideas or new versions of old ideas get into the institutional mix? That is what "politicizing social issues" is all about and there is a need to dramatize the need for new approaches to international organizations, to pick one end of the scale and for new approaches to cyberbullying to pick the other end. The policy process begins with these new ideas, it processes them, passes them, implements them, and evaluates their effectiveness. Every now and then, they just pull the plug on a program.
The class has to so with the public policies themselves. What are policies good for? What effects do they have? On Wildwood Trail, in Forest Park, they try to keep unleashed dogs off the trail in two ways. They post a sign citing the relevant city code and promise both jail time and a fine. The second is a much prettier sign asking people PLEASE to stay off the grass. If I took a dog to the trail to run, I'd find that confusing. what is the effect of putting "If you do that, you'll pay" on a post next to "We really wish you wouldn't. Please?"
So how can you offer policy incentives and disincentives that will help clean all that up? That's what we do in 414.
The first third of the course is involved with the mechanics--more about them later; the second part with the policy process; the third part with the study of the policies themselves. It's kind of a sloppy course. The pace varies, depending on just who in class is understanding what and how soon they can be made ready go on.
My contribution to the course is a device for understanding what the policy discussions are really about. I began calling it an APP for the three parts: axis, position, and problem. Then I started calling it the Killer APP just for fun.
The first element is the axis (A) of the argument. Most arguments in politics are won or lost depending on the question that is under consideration. If we are talking about my question, I am likely to win no matter what you say about it; if we are talking about yours, you are likely to win. I use the pro-life/pro-choice “non-debate” as my example. Since no one is “anti-life” or “anti-choice” in absolute terms, the real question is whether we are going to be talking about life or about choice..
An axis is defined formally by its polar positions (P), which, if the question is asked carefully, are usually Yes and No. Should the U. S. rely on nuclear power as the main source? The Yes and No positions are formally opposed and that provides some much needed clarity. But in policy discussions, “actual opponents” come in more than two flavors. They sound like: a) not at this time, b) the technology needs to be developed further, c) it will require a large initial investment, b) the supervising agency doesn’t yet have the authority to grant licenses and on and on. And if you come close to passing a bill, the “opposition” will sign on to the bill—becoming “friends”—to try to restrict its application or postpone its start or establish unrealistic expectations for its performance. Those are all “actual opponents.”
The final part of this tool takes seriously the idea that everyone who takes a position, learns to look at the world in a way that is friendly to that position, devising a problem (P) format that takes the value of the position for granted.. For that reason, the final thing the students do is to develop a quick little worldview for each position. What are the most important values to be preserved, what are the most prominent enemies of those values, what tools best serve to extend them, how can their importance be placed in the ideological rhetoric of the era, who will clearly benefit from the operation of the program, who can help me protect the program and extend it and who will oppose it. Simple questions, really, but building them for a position you yourself have never taken seriously can be a challenge.
It is this device that makes the course skills hard to learn. You think you know them, because you have learned to talk about them, but then when you try to use them, you find that it doesn’t work and you have to go back and learn it so you can do it without looking at it. It’s the difference between being able to say the alphabet and being able to read.
