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.