Political Science 335: Public Policy
Fall 2013
Professor Brian Adams
e-mail: badams@mail.sdsu.edu
Phone: 594-4289
Office: AH 4114
Office hours: Mondays 9-10 am, Tuesdays 10:30-11:30 am, and Wednesdays 10:30-11:30 am
Overview
This course is designed to introduce students to American public policy and has three broad
goals. The first is for students to develop an understanding of how public policy is made in the
United States. Towards this end, we will examine the dominant theories of policy making in the
literature and explore their merits by examining specific policy issues (most prominently
education and health care). The second goal is for students to understand the nature of social
problems and the policy choices that the United States faces to address them. The last goal is a
practical one: to teach students how to write a policy analysis, a valuable skill applicable to a
variety of different careers in government as well as the nonprofit and for-profit sectors.
Learning Outcomes
 Learn how to conduct a policy analysis.
 Assess whether educational reforms over the past 20 years has been effective.
 Assess the likely impact of the Affordable Care Act.
 Recognize the choices and tradeoffs involved in balancing the federal budget.
 Understand the factors that influence what policies appear on the agenda and which
alternatives are considered.
 Recognize the different tools government can use to deliver public services.
 Recognize the factors that contribute to policy change.
Texts
Barr, Donald. Introduction to U.S. Health Policy: The Organization, Financing, and Delivery of
Health Care in America (3rd edition). Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
Wessel, David. Red Ink: Inside the High-Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget. Crown Business;
2012.
Articles and book chapters available through Blackboard.
Assignments
First policy memo (due September 27th): 20%
Second policy memo (due October 18th): 20%
Policy analysis (due December 3rd): 30%
Final exam (December 16th): 30%
A few notes on the assignments:
 There is no curve in this class; students will be given the grade that they earn.
 Students will receive letter grades on all the assignments, which will be converted to a
100-point scale to calculate a course grade.
 All written assignments will be submitted electronically to Turnitin, which is run through
blackboard. The papers will be graded and returned electronically as well.
 You will receive prompts for the policy memos approximately one week before they are
due. We will discuss the requirements for the policy analysis paper during week 8.
 There are two types of readings on blackboard. Book chapters can be downloaded
directly in a .pdf format. For journal articles, you will find a link to the article that will
take you to a library database. From that database you can download the article in a .pdf
format.
 All reading assignments are required.
 The final will be an in-class blue-book exam consisting of identification and essay
questions.
Course Outline
Note: the instructor reserves the right to change assignment dates and content. All changes will
be announced in class and through e-mail.
All readings other than the two textbooks can be found on the Blackboard course website. Note
that I do not always assign all the pages in an article or chapter.
Week 1 (Aug. 26th and 28th): Introduction and K-12 education part I (educational governance)
Week 2 (Sep. 4th): K-12 education part II (school financing)
Readings:
1. Hanushek, Eric A., and Alfred A. Lindseth. 2009. Schoolhouses, Courthouses, and
Statehouses. Princeton: Princeton. Pages 44-82.
2. Darling-Hammond, Linda. 2010. The Flat World and Education. Teachers College
Press. Pages 99-130.
Week 3 (Sep. 9th and 11th): K-12 education part III (No Child Left Behind and the standards
movement)
Readings:
1. Manna, Paul. 2011. Collision Course: Federal Education Policy Meets State and Local
Realities. CQ Press. Pages 20-41.
2. Jost, Kenneth. 2010. “Revising No Child Let Behind.” CQ Researcher 20 (15): 337360.
5. McNeil, Linda. 2011. “The Educational Costs of Standardization.” In Eleanor Blair
Hilty, ed. Thinking About Schools. Westview Press. Pages 411-417.
Week 4 (Sep. 16th and 18th): K-12 Education part IV (school choice)
Readings
1. Howell, William G. and Paul E. Peterson. 2006. The Education Gap: Vouchers and
Urban Schools. Brookings Institution Press. Pages 1-27.
2. Ravitch, Diane. 2010. The Death and Life of the Great American School System. New
York: Basic Books. Pages 113-147.
Week 5 (Sep. 23rd and 25th): Health care, part I: overview of the health care system and ACA
Reading: Barr, Introduction to U.S. Health Policy, pages 1-34 and 77-115.
First policy memo due September 27th
Week 6 (Sep 30th and Oct 2nd): Health care, Part II: Medicare and Medicaid
Reading: Barr, Introduction to U.S. Health Policy pages 131-143, 158-190, and 253-272.
Week 7 (Oct. 7th and 9th): Health care, part III: ways forward
Reading: Barr, Introduction to U.S. Health Policy pages 191-238 and 273-312.
Week 8 (Oct. 14th and 16th): How to do a policy analysis
Reading: Kraft, Michael E. and Scott R. Furlong. 2004. Public Policy: Politics, Analysis,
and Alternatives. CQ Press. Pages 115-122 and 152-176.
Second policy memo due October 18th
Week 9 (Oct. 21st and 23rd): Agenda setting, entrepreneurs and diffusion
Readings:
1. Kingdon, John W. 2003. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (2nd ed.).
Longman Classics. Pages 1-18 and 71-89
2. Shipan, Charles R. and Craig Volden. 2012. “Policy Diffusion: Seven lessons for
Scholars and Practitioners.” Public Administration Review 72 (6): 788-796.
Week 10 (Oct. 28th and 30th): Explaining policy change
Readings:
1. Schneider, Anne and Helen Ingram. 1993. “Social Constructions and Target
Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy.” American Political Science Review 87
(2): 334-47.
2. Lindblom, Charles E. 1959. “The Science of ‘Muddling Through.’” Public
Administration Review 19 (2):79-88.
Week 11 (Nov. 4th and 6th): Policy tools and the “New Public Management”
Readings:
1. Osborne, David and Ted Gaebler. 1993. Reinventing Government: How the
Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector. Plume. Pages xv-xxi and 1-24.
2. Salamon, Lester M., ed. 2002. The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New
Governance. Oxford University Press. Pages 1-37.
Week 12 (Nov 13th): Implementation
Readings:
1. Smith, Kevin B and Christopher W. and Larimer. 2013. The Public Policy Theory
Primer. Westview Press. Chapter 7
2. Lipsky, Michael. 1980. Street-Level Bureaucracy. New York: Russell Sage. Pages 3-4
and 13-25.
Week 13 (Nov. 18th and 20th): Network analysis and the respective roles of citizens and experts
Reading: Ingram, Helen and Anne L. Schneider. 2006. “Policy Analysis for Democracy.”
In Michael Moran, Martin Rein and Robert F. Goodin, eds. Oxford Handbook of Public
Policy. Oxford. Pages 169-189.
Week 14 (Nov. 25th and 27th): The federal budget, part I
Reading; Wessel, Red Ink, Chapters 1 and 2
Week 15 (Dec. 2nd and 4th): The federal budget, part II
Reading; Wessel, Red Ink, Chapters 3 and 4
Policy analysis paper due December 3rd
Week 16 (Dec. 9th and 11th): The federal budget, part III
Reading; Wessel, Red Ink, Chapter 5
Final exam: Monday, December 16th 1-3 pm.