Department of Social & Policy Sciences, Unit Catalogue 2006/07

SP50139 International policy analysis 1

Credits: 6

Level: Masters

Semester: 1

Assessment: CW100

Requisites:

In taking this unit you cannot take EC50063

Aims: To provide students with a critical understanding of international policy-making; To provide students with a critical understanding of different methodological approaches towards analysing international policy and with the ability to apply these to international policy issues and problems. To provide students with a critical understanding of the institutional and policy environment within which governments, businesses and civil society organisations are shaping the global system; To critically examine the policy choices and conflicts these actors present to each other and the issues of public and private responsibility which these raise.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this unit, students will have:
* Studied key texts relating to the analysis of international policy-making
* Explored the major methods and models of international policy analysis
* Critically analysed the role of state and non-state actors and political institutions involved in international policy-making
By the end of this unit students should be able to:
* Apply different methodologies to analyse international policy issues and problems and to understand the international policy process.
Skills:
Intellectual skills:
* To think creatively and analytically
* To communicate an argument
* To critically evaluate and assess research and evidence as well as a variety of other information
* To synthesise information from a number of sources in order to gain a coherent understanding.
Transferable/Key Skills:
* Essay research, preparation and writing skills
* Group work skills
* Policy research skills
* Presentation skills and verbal communication (i.e. oral presentations, seminar contributions)
Knowledge Outcomes:
* Theoretical basis of different concepts towards understanding international policy-making
* Knowledge of the current developments and contemporary research in international policy analysis
* Identification of international policy issues
Content:

Week 1: Purposes and Limits of International Policy Analysis
Week 2: The Policy Process (agency, role of the state, international institutions and civil society actors
Week 3: The Cultural Setting of the Policy Process and Policy Analysis
Week 4: The Role of International Relations Theory and Ideology
Week 5: Methods: Institutional and Constitutional Analysis
Week 6: Methods: Policy Networks and the Role of Epistemic Communities
Week 7: Methods: Narrative Policy Analysis
Week 8: Methods: Rational Techniques
Week 9: Methods (Policy Change): The Advocacy Coalition Framework
Week 10: Methods (Policy Change): Punctuated-Equilibrium Theory
Week 11: Conclusion
In the first week, students will form working-groups of 3-4 members and they will stay in these working-groups throughout the semester. Each group will be given an international policy issue in the first two weeks of teaching.
By week four each group will have done research on their given international policy issue and they will have to submit a non-assessed focus-paper on the given policy issue and the actors involved.
In weeks five to ten, each working-group will have to submit at least four non-assessed group-papers, each paper using a different method to analyse their policy issue.
Blackboard will be used to allow discussion and cross-policy-learning between the different working-groups.
Students will be individually assessed on the basis of a portfolio, which analyses the given policy issue, employing at least four different methods learned in this unit.

University | Catalogues for 2006/07