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Public Policy and Institutions (SPS-REHEM-PUB-26)

SPS-REHEM-PUB-26

Purpose

This Field course offers a comprehensive introduction to the political analysis of public policy and institutional change, against the background of possibly deep social transformations in advanced European democracies. The aim is to introduce researchers to the state of the art in comparative research in the theoretical tradition of three institutionalisms (Hall and Taylor 1996) and the policy-focused analysis of political processes (Hacker and Pierson 2014). 

The course thus aims to provide researchers with advanced knowledge of key concepts and mechanisms that help explain institutional continuity but also change over time. 

Policy reform and institutional change, inescapably building on extant policy legacies across countries, lead to patchwork mixes of old and new policies and institutions on the lookout, perhaps, for greater coherence. Unsurprisingly, this political “search process” remains incomplete, resulting from the institutionally bounded and contingent adaptation to the political aftershocks of crises and against the background of adverse demography, economic (de-)globalization, accelerating digital innovation, and climate change. We use in every session an important case-study in the comparative analysis of policymaking, with particular attention given to competing theories on politics of policy change and methodological strengths and weaknesses of the approach taken. 

Description

Syllabus is available here

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