Government is important because it does things using the collective power of the American people. We call this public policy. The promise of a Republic is that the citizens have a key say in what public policies the government pursues. Citizens don’t have the final say, because our desires are collected and filtered by representative political institutions, and the resulting policies are implemented by bureacracies.
Research Process
We’ll develop our skills at effecting public policy by researching two policy debates. You can choose from
Health care reform
Afghanistan and US Foreign Policy
Social Security Reform
Reform of regulation in the financial services industry (banks, insurance, investment houses etc.)
Purpose
The purpose of these research projects is for you to learn how to influence public policy. So you will be writing what we call policy advocacy: an informed and well thought out point of view on some piece of government behavior. You cannot be “neutral,” and you have to back up you ideas with quality information. At the end of the term you will, if you are still enrolled in the class, be required to mail these pieces of advocacy to me and to all the political actors who have some say in the issue you write about.
Assignment Structure
These are not “letters.” These are not just opportunities to say “I want” or “I believe” to political figures.You should think of yourself as Legislative Aides who have been asked to obtain and summarize real knowledge on real issues for real political leaders. You should find a politician on a House or Senate Committee, or in an administrative agency, with jurisdiction over the policy that has a point of view agreeable to you and pretend to work for them
Talk radio, TV news shows, letters to the editor and opinion-editorial pieces are all bad examples of what you are being asked to do. Do not immitate them.
You will have four homeworks which guide your research for these papers:
public opinion
Interest groups
Congress
Federal Administration
At term’s end you will be asked to write an analysis of two proposals for government action. They might be legislative proposals, or they might be proposals for changes in the rules and proceedures of administrataive agencies.
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