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Course Descriptions
- PPOL 1910 Hard Choices in Public Policy (4 credits)
- This course provides an opportunity to develop comprehensive knowledge of America's
most intriguing public policy dilemmas. Policy issues to be discussed include intergenerational
equity, competitiveness, the budget and trade deficits, crime, AIDS, education, health
care, the environment, entitlements, immigration, race and affirmative action, public
involvement, and social welfare.
- PPOL 2000 Anlys & Actn Americn Pub Plcy (4 credits)
- This course is designed as a rigorous, analytical introduction for public policy majors
to the ways in which American public policy is actually made and includes discussion
of (1) Congress; (2) the President; (3) the Supreme Court; and (4) Regulatory agencies.
The course is problem-centered and core policy dilemmas are discussed from both cost-benefit
and decision-making perspectives. Key topics include the following interrelated issues:
(a) fiscal policy and the federal budget; (b) entitlement reform; (c) health care;
(d) national security; (e) the financial crisis and economic growth; (f) education;
(g) criminal justice; and (h) environmental policy.
- PPOL 2610 The City and Public Policy (4 credits)
- In the 1970s and 1980s, America's greatest cities had become virtually ungovernable.
Crime was rampant in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and many other
formerly great urban centers. Economic decline was manifest in shrinking populations
and the flight to the suburbs. But in the early 1990s, the governing paradigm changed.
Led by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in New York, traditional ideas of governance, law enforcement,
the use of public space, and economic development were reasserted. The result was
a reversal of the "conventional wisdom"--that the American city was dead or dying--and
an unprecedented revival of optimism, based on a newfound appreciation for cities
themselves and a reinvigorated understanding of the elements of public policy success.
This course examines key public policies involved in (1) effective law enforcement
and policing; (2) the determination of public space and public behavior; (3) the shift
in urban life from production to creativity; (4) understanding the unique advantages
of the urban environment.
- PPOL 2701 Topics in Public Policy (4 credits)
- Various topics in public policy are covered. Topics change each term as deemed appropriate
with local, regional, and federal policy issues and regulation changes. Prerequisite:
PPOL 2000.
- PPOL 2710 Demography of Public Policy (4 credits)
- "Demography is destiny." The consequences for American public policy are profound.
America is aging, but becoming more diverse. A society in the midst of dynamic change
is a society full of possibilities, but vulnerable to conflict. Values become indeterminate,
with traditional communities vying for legitimacy with emergent cultures. Social movements,
often populist in nature, challenge the established political order. This course focuses
on the delineation of effective public policies to deal with demographic challenges,
including (1) immigration policy; (2) the process of assimilation; (3) education;
(4) geographic realignment; (5) competitive advantage of the United States relative
to the European Union, Russia, and China.
- PPOL 2802 Supreme Court & Public Policy (4 credits)
- Students examine the policy-making role of the Supreme Court in such areas as civil
rights, economic policy, freedom of expression, and criminal justice, while studying
the overall power of the Court to determine social policy.
- PPOL 2804 Federal Budgetary Policy (4 credits)
- Students gain knowledge of the basics of government fiscal planning through a simulation
of the federal budget process.
- PPOL 3000 Med Policy & Am Hlth Care Syst (4 credits)
- This course is designed to create understanding of the medical, legal, ethical and
public policy issues at each stage of the life cycle. The costs of health care delivery
systems are outstripping our ability to pay, yet the demand for new medical technologies
continues unabated. Questions must be answered about these costs and demands. In many
ways, the health care delivery system presents some of our most vexing public policy
dilemmas.
- PPOL 3115 Economics for Public Policy I (4 credits)
- The tools and techniques of economics are essential for policy analysis. This course
provides an intensive and comprehensive introduction to the field of economic analysis,
with a specific emphasis on the applicability of economics to public policy and problem
solving within the field of policy analysis. Topics include supply and demand; gross
domestic product; business cycles; classical and neo-classical economic theory; Keynesianism
and Keynesian equilibrium; the "Chicago School"; fiscal policy; inflation; stimulation
of aggregate demand; employment and unemployment equilibrium; creation of money; the
Federal Reserve system; national debt; the financial sector; public and private debt.
Prerequisite: sophomore standing; PPOL 2000 strongly recommended.
- PPOL 3116 Economics for Public Policy II (4 credits)
- This course is the sequel to PPOL 3115. Core topics include consumer choice; choices
in the public and private sector; the role of private self-interest; the role of governmental
self-interest ("public choice"); utility maximization; price elasticity of demand;
short and long-run costs; competition; monopoly; efficiency; oligopoly; antitrust
policy; positive and negative externalities, such as taxes and regulations; effects
of governmental uncertainty; market distortions; trade policy; profitability; productivity;
the economics of health care and environmental regulation; leading and lagging indications
of economic activity; creation of economic policy; "theory" vs. "applied" considerations.
Prerequisites: PPOL 3115 and sophomore standing; PPOL 2000 strongly recommended.
- PPOL 3118 Public Policy-Money & Finance (4 credits)
- This course is about money--the fuel that powers American society. Students will develop
a sophisticated understanding of the American financial system, while coming to terms
with the relationship between money, markets, and government. Students will learn
key concepts in public finance, along with the operation of financial instruments
like stocks, bonds, commodities and derivatives. Students who take this course will
understand monetary and fiscal policy, taxation, exchange rates, and the vital role
of credit.
- PPOL 3125 Power and Policy (4 credits)
- This course focuses on the historical development of American 20th-century policy
trends and will emphasize (1) the creation of the regulatory state, beginning in the
late 1890s and accelerating through the Progressive Era; (2) the Great Depression,
the New Deal, and the rise of entitlement culture; (3) World War II, the rise of the
military-industrial state and the suburbanization of the 1950s; (4) the Civil Rights
Revolution, the New Frontier and Great Society of Kennedy and Johnson--together with
the value changes of the 1960s; (5) the Regan Era and the conservative challenge to
big government; and (6) the policy dichotomies and uncertainties.
- PPOL 3230 Analytical & Critical Skills (4 credits)
- Students gain the tools necessary to analyze competing points of view using empirical
techniques and statistical inference. Students also learn the history and development
of the scientific method; how to distinguish between speculation, theory, fact, and
opinion; how to identify the validity of data; how to identify the intentional obfuscation
of issues; and how to evaluate one?s own prejudices and vulnerability to argument.
- PPOL 3250 Evidence & Logic in Pub. Pol. (4 credits)
- This course provides a focus for public policy majors on actual decision-making process
within the executive and legislative branches of the federal government. Consideration
is given to (1) the role of evidence, empirical analysis, and logic; (2) the role
of politics; (3) the role of party affiliation and ideology in the decision-making
process; (4) the role of key actors and agencies and the distribution of responsibility;
(5) the role of outside experts, such as think tanks and journalists; and (6) the
influence of lobbyists and other "rent seekers." Students consider such critical examples
of decision-making as the Cuban Missile Crisis; the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; the
decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq; congressional decisions relating to "health
care reform" in 2009 and 2010; and the executive branch decisions involving the financial
crisis of 2008, including the emergency implementation of the Troubled Asset Relief
Program (TARP). Students write a detailed policy memorandum to a member of the executive
branch or to a congressional leader, containing a situational analysis and action
recommendation pertinent to a significant "real time" policy controversy.
- PPOL 3280 The Presidency: Primaries (4 credits)
- The 2008 Presidential campaign is the first "open" presidential race in 56 years and
features the first woman, African American, Hispanic, and Mormon contenders for the
Presidency. This course will follow this historic race through the primaries, caucuses
and conventions process and explore how the foundation of the races' public policy
is set. Students will go inside the critical earlier primaries and caucuses and learn
how Presidential candidates create public policy ideas, convey those ideas to distinct
electorates and use those ideas to distinguish themselves from other candidates. The
class will study how presumptive nominees prepare for the general election, the party
conventions and how they "re-tool" their policy ideas for presentation to the national
electorate.
- PPOL 3281 The Presidency: Gen Election (4 credits)
- The 2008 Presidential campaign is the first "open" Presidential race in 56 years and
features the first woman, African American, Hispanic, and Mormon contenders for the
Presidency. This class will follow in real time the fall campaign of the Presidential
race. Students will build on the primary and caucus class and review the general election
as it unfolds during the fall. Students will see the impact and influence of public
policy on the fall campaign and how it shapes the Presidential race.
- PPOL 3282 The Presidency: Policy Making (4 credits)
- The 2008 Presidential campaign is the first "open" presidential race in 56 years and
features the first woman, African American, Hispanic, and Mormon contenders for the
Presidency. Students discover and analyze how U.S. Presidents create, convey, and
implement their public policy ideas and agendas. This discovery and analysis will
be done by following, in a close, in-depth and investigative fashion, the first 60
days of the next President and the public policy decisions, strategies, and actions
taken by the President and his/her administration.
- PPOL 3701 Topics in Public Policy (4 credits)
- PPOL 3706 Faith and Public Policy (4 credits)
- The influence of faith and religion has been a constant companion in the creation
of American public policy. The persuasion has ebbed and flowed, but it has always
played a steady and influential role. "Faith and Public Policy" will review the role
faith has played and is playing in American public policy. Whether it's the powerful
Religious Right, the role of the African American church in public policy or the emerging
Religious Left, the arena is always evolving. Students will leave the course with
a clearer understanding of the role faith plays and has played in policy, the impact
of faith in creating current policy and the role faith will play in future elections.
- PPOL 4100 American Public Policy System (4 credits)
- The American Policy Agenda, which is required for MPP students, will provide an intensive
overview of the development of American public policy in the 20th century, with special
emphasis on the interconnection between the values of the public and private sectors.
Through the lens of a useful descriptive model, graduate students will learn concepts
of the role of government have evolved from: the (1) constitutional period, wherein
political society was thought to be a rational device for the protection of property
and liberty and prosperity was equivalent to the free management of affairs; to the
(2) administrative period, wherein powerful regulatory agencies were created to control
concentrations of corporate power and the idea developed that the market does not
always reflect the social good; to the (3) bureaucratic period, wherein the stock
market collapse of 1929 and the Great Depression reversed key ideas of limited government
inherent in the constitution and, beginning with the New Deal, social engineering
in the "public interest" defined virtually every problem as "national;" to the (4)
social welfare period, wherein government became the source of vast entitlements and
benefits and interest groups came to dominate the policy debate; to the (5) current
period of stalemate, gridlock, and reconsideration, wherein big government is a given,
along with a utilitarian social contract defined as that which provides the most efficiency,
the most productivity, and the most consumption for the most people.
- PPOL 4200 Microeconomics for Public Pol. (4 credits)
- Microeconomics for Public Policy Analysis will provide a comprehensive, case-based
overview for the MPP student of the consequences of contemporary public policies for
individuals, households, and firms. Public policy is often said to consist of the
distribution of scarce or valuable resources or benefits through the mechanisms of
the public sector. This course will provide the opportunity to gain fluency and expertise
in the application of economic analysis to such problems as transfer payments, entitlements,
government subsidies, taxation, housing, education, labor, welfare and crime. Issues
concerned with exploring the government's role in encouraging innovation, maintaining
a growing economy, and budgeting under conditions of "surplus," will be explored using
contemporary policy initiatives. Two competing visions of public policy will be examined:
the role of economic policy in securing the benefits of "ordered liberty," which accrues
to the individual; and (2) the vision of public policy as fundamental to the correction
of anomalies in the market and in the distribution of scarce resources, often based
on interest group claims of "disparity" and "inequality".
- PPOL 4300 Quantitative Analysis-Pub Pol (4 credits)
- This course will provide the MMP student with the tools of mathematical analysis needed
for the advanced study of public policy issues and evaluation of alternatives. Topics
will include descriptive statistics, probability, sampling, estimation, inference
and hypothesis testing, variable analysis and correlation, regression theory, reliability
and validity, and prediction and simulation. Students needing review of college-level
algebra will be referred to appropriate tutorials.
- PPOL 4400 Analytical & Critical Skills (4 credits)
- This course will provide the student with the analytical tools necessary to evaluate
competing points of view, using empirical techniques, logic, and statistical inference.
Case studies will be drawn from the current legislative and regulatory environment
and will provide the MPP student with opportunities to construct a course of action,
based on the use of logically consistant arguments and on the persuasive use of facts
and empirical data. Students in this course will also learn the history and development
of the scientific method, how to distinguish speculation, theory, fact, and opinion,
how to identify the validity, ideological content or irrationality of data, how to
identify the intentional obfuscation of issues, and how to evaluate one's own prejudices
and vulnerability to argument not based on evidence.
- PPOL 4500 Cost-Benefit Analysis/Pub Pol (4 credits)
- How do we determine if programs have met their objectives? Increasingly, this is a
matter for empirical evaluation. This course will focus on quantitative approaches
to program evaluation and on the primary tool available to the policy analyst in the
modern organizational framework, cost-benefit analysis. Various issues will be considered,
including the "costs" associated with taxes (and tax expenditures), governmental mandates,
health and safety regulation, environmental regulation, government "investments,"
such as those in education, defense, law enforcement, and the regulation of financial
industries.
- PPOL 4501 Great Issues Forum (2 credits)
- The Great Issues Forums are unique short courses devoted to a single policy issue
and taught by a nationally-recognized authority in the area. These courses will occur
on a periodic basis, with at least two forums to be offered each academic quarter.
Participation in these courses is required for graduate students in the MPP program.
Each course will be taught on an intensive workshop basis, over the course of two
or more days, for example, all-day sessions on Friday and Saturday. Specific topics
will be determined by the immediacy of the policy issue and its relevancy to the curriculum
of the MPP.
- PPOL 4502 Issues Forum II (2 credits)
- The Great Issues Forums are unique short courses devoted to a single policy issue
and taught by a nationally-recognized authority in the area. These courses will occur
on a periodic basis, with at least two forums to be offered each academic quarter.
Participation in these courses is required for graduate students in the MPP program.
Each course will be taught on an intensive workshop basis, over the course of two
or more days, for example, all-day sessions on Friday and Saturday. Specific topics
will be determined by the immediacy of the policy issue and its relevancy to the curriculum
of the MPP.
- PPOL 4504 The Policymaking Environment (2 credits)
- This forum aims to provide MPP students with a robust understanding of the essentials
of the policymaking process in the United States. We will be examining in sequence
three basic topics: 1) The political values and principles that establish the parameters
for the policymaking environment; 2) The set of governmental and non-governmental
actors who participate in policymaking and how they relate to each other; and 3) What
policymaking models can help to explain the way policy is made by those actors.
- PPOL 4506 The American Fiscal Future (4 credits)
- This course provides the opportunity for students to gain a comprehensive understanding
of American fiscal policy, the derivation of the social welfare state, the consequences
of debt and deficits for American public policy and social stability, and the policy
alternatives to current dysfunctional policies.
- PPOL 4600 Regulatory Policy (4 credits)
- This course will provide the MPP student with a solid understanding of the legal basis
for policy action, through a case-based examination of executive and legislative authority,
judicial policy-making, the expansion of the due process and equal protection clauses
of the 14th Amendment, and the expansion of administrative authority under the Administrative
Procedure Act. Such issues as affirmative action, government contracting, school finance,
antitrust, and substantive due process will be presented utilizing a combination of
traditional legal analysis and the cost- benefit approach of the policy specialist.
- PPOL 4700 Public Management & Budgeting (4 credits)
- This course introduces students to the topic of public management, which includes
concepts such as organizational structure, performance management, and strategy development.
In addition, the instructor will teach the techniques and concepts of government and
non-profit budgeting/financial management. The budgeting process includes program
development/implementation, cost and revenue estimation and projection, and budget
evaluation. The relationship between public management and budgeting will be explored.
- PPOL 4701 Topics in Public Policy (4 credits)
- Various topics in public policy are covered. Topic subjects to change each term as
deemed appropriate with local, regional and federal policy issues and regulation changes.
Prerequisite: PPOL 4100.
- PPOL 4806 Decision Making in Policy (4 credits)
- Provides a new perspective on the process of decision-making in the public and private
sectors. Viewed from the perspective of a significant paradigm shift, the "rational
model" of policy-making is contrasted with emerging theories based on a view of human
nature that is unpredictable, idiosyncratic, and context-based. Case studies are drawn
from the current financial crisis and from the ongoing debate over economic stimulus
and recovery. Additional examples are provided from the New Deal era, the Vietnam
war, Watergate, and from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- PPOL 4807 Pub Pol-Retiring Baby Boomers (4 credits)
- The first baby boomers start drawing Social Security in 2008, and they they start
turning 65 in 2011. American Retirement Policy has long undertaken three major obligations
with regard to the elderly: Social Security, Health Care and Long Term Care. The shock
of 76 million baby boomers impacting these three systems (and related programs like
Veteran's programs, Military retirement, Federal Civil Service Retirement, etc.) will
be profound. Your generation will soon be running a nation of 50 Florida's. This class
will look at the public policy options of these three programs. We will also look
at the politics of retirement policy, the demography of the next 50 years, tax policy
in an aging society, how other developed countries are handling similar problems,
and we will develop a comprehensive plan for meeting these multiple challenges.
- PPOL 4808 Health Care Policy (4 credits)
- No prerequisites. The purpose of this course will be to explore the assumptions, the
history, the development and the current practices of the U. S. health care systems.
What are its strengths and what are its weaknesses? How do we explain its paradox
of excess and deprivation? We will spend some limited time examining other nation's
health care systems for comparative purposes. The course will cover a broad range
of topics and will explore a systems approach to health, obtaining an understanding
of the integration of the public and private sector, free-market and government regulation;
the effects on the doctor/patient relationship, the new health care demands, the search
for quality, the role of new technologies and the changing ethical standards. Such
a course cannot be designed to describe a functional world of health care delivery
for even as the description is being formulated, the practical and functional aspects
of that world are changing.
- PPOL 4810 Building a Sustainable America (4 credits)
- This course has a viewpoint: endless economic and population growth are sustainable.
Opposing viewpoints are welcomed, even encouraged, but the purpose of this class is
to start developing a new, more sustainable agenda for America. No trees grow to the
sky and no geometric growth curves are sustainable. The first census in 1790 found
four million Europeans living in North America. (Estimate of Native Americans vary
widely.) That means that between 1790 and 1990, America had six doublings of its population
(4, 8, 32, 64, 128, 256). Note that two more doublings would give us one billion Americans.
Sustainable? Desired Public Policy? Similarly, U.S. and world economic growth has
been growing exponentially. America's GDP is now 13 trillion dollars and there are
serious questions whether the world's eco-systems can provide 6.5 billion people (the
current world population) anything close to an American standard of living. Nor can
the eco-system tolerate economic growth at historic rates. Many thoughtful observers
think that a whole new phase of human development has been reached, call it the Sustainability
Revolution, which will have as profound impact on human history as did the Industrial
Revolution. Our globe is warming, our glaciers are melting, our oceans are expanding,
our coral dying, our rainforest dying, our deserts creeping, our water-tables falling:
we seem to be headed to a time of convergence. For the first time in history, humankind
has itself become a geological force. New public policy solutions need to be brought
forth and debated. We will attempt to do exactly that.
- PPOL 4811 The Strategy of Public Policy (4 credits)
- Public Policy is formed in many ways: legislation, court rulings, initiative campaigns,
executive orders, and regulations, not to mention many other subtle instruments that
are often invisible to the public. All of these tools make analyzing policy a difficult
task, and they make choosing the right strategy for getting a policy implemented even
more complicated. How is it that policy makers choose to implement their policies?
Are any options more effective than others? To understand the policy process in the
U.S., policy analysts must understand the institutions that exist in government.
- PPOL 4812 Supreme Court & Public Policy (4 credits)
- This course, which is specifically designed for graduate students in public policy,
provides the necessary professional background for students to understand the role
of the Supreme Court of the United States in the formulation of public policy. Central
to the course are the due process and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution, which are the key to understanding the vast expansion of
Supreme Court power since the New Deal. The course also provides a basis for the student
to understand the constitutional basis for administrative regulation, as well as freedom
of expression issues inherent in the 1st Amendment.
- PPOL 4820 What Works in Public Policy (4 credits)
- The goal of this course is to analyze the implications for public policy of significant
public policy failures and successes. Selected major public policy initiatives are
examined with a view toward judging their ultimate success or failure and the reasons
for these outcomes. There is an emphasis on discussing unintended consequences and
the role of modern economic theory. The role of ideology and politics in policy outcomes
is also a focus. Policy areas that are evaluated include: Social Security and Medicare;
the decline of the cities; federal fiscal and tax policy; and deregulation of financial
markets.
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