Politics and policy overlap in a seemingly infinite number of ways involving procedures, people, institutions, etc. The course will be built around the role of politics at each of the "stages" of the policy process, exploring the political forces shape policy agenda-setting, formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation. Readings and concepts will be introduced from the fields of political science, policy studies, and related disciplines. Ideas will be synthesized at the end of the course in an exercise that simulates the interplay of politics and policy making. Our purpose is to improve our understanding of how politics and policy affect each other, for better or worse.
Students are expected to maintain the highest standards of academic integrity. All work submitted must be original and properly cited. Plagiarism, cheating, or any form of academic dishonesty will result in immediate consequences as outlined in the university's academic integrity policy.
The course will satisfy designated learning objectives for courses carrying social sciences credit (Core Area E) at Georgia Tech: “how political relationships develop, persist, and change,” and an understanding of “the complexity of human behavior as a function of the commonality and diversity within groups.” Furthermore, These objectives satisfy learning objectives for “general education” social sciences courses at Georgia Tech: “Students will be able to describe the social, political, and economic forces that influence social behavior.”