Introduction to Policy-making Processes (Meiji University Grad School of Governance Studies)

Introduction to Policy-making Processes

Fall Semester, Wednesdays, 9.00-10.40 Room 310H

This course provides an introduction to theoretical frameworks for analyzing policy processes. It starts with an overview of canonical theories on policy processes, such as problem definition, incrementalism, agenda setting, implementation, and bureaucracy. We will also discuss the influence of cultural and institutional contexts and the role of knowledge in the policy process. This course will also cover recent trends, such as policy networks, advocacy coalition, policy transfer, and deliberative democracy. The course will discuss the practice of policy-making in Japan as well.

The course is structured around pre-class readings and in-class discussions. Students are asked to present a synthesized summary of their assigned readings in the class.

Textbook

Reading materials will be provided to each enrolled student at the beginning of the course in the PDF format.

Schedule (TBD)

Introduction
Incrementalism and implementation	Lindblom, C. (1959). The Science of "Muddling Through", Public Administration Review, 19 (2), pp. 79-88 Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-Level Bureaucracy. Russel Sage Fdn. Chapter 2
Agenda setting	Kingdon, J. (1995). Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Addison-Wesley. Chapter 9. Baumgartner, F. and Jones, B. (1993). Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Univ. of Chicago Press. Chapter 12.
Path dependence and issue-attention cycle	David, P. (1985) “Clio and the Economics of QWERTY,” American Economic Review, 75(2), pp. 332-337. Downs, A. (1972) “Up and Down with Ecology: The ‘Issue-Attention’ cycle,” Public Interest, 28, pp. 38-50.
Problem definition and advocacy coalition	Stone, D. (1988). Policy Paradox: the art of political decision making. New York, NY: W.W. Norton. Chapter 6. Jenkins-Smith, H. and Sabatier, P. (1994). “Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework,” Journal of Public Policy, 14(2) , pp. 175-203.
Behavioral economics	Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking Fast and Slow. New York, NY: Allen Lane. Chapters 1 and 3. Thaler, R. and Sunstein, C. (2009). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Introduction Chapter.
Institutions (1) [via recoded videos/ no in-class session and quiz]	Argyris, C. (1992). On Organizational Learning. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Chapter 1. DiMaggio, P. and Powell, W. (1983). The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields. American Sociological Rev., 48, pp. 147-160.
Institutions (2)	Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons. New York, NY: Univ. of Cambridge. Chapter 3. Olson, M. (1971). The Logic of Collective Action (2nd ed.) Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Chapter Ch. 1 (pp. 5-16, 33-52)
Policy transfer and lesson drawing	Rose, R. (1991). “What is Lesson-Drawing,” Journal of Public Policy, 11, pp. 3-30. Westney, E. (1987). Imitation and Innovation: The transfer of Western organizational patterns to Meiji Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Chapter 1
Scientific advice	Stirling, A. (2010). “Keep it complex,” Nature, 468, pp. 1029–1031. Pielke, R. (2007). The Honest Broker: Making sense of science in policy and politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 2.
Japanese policy processes	Freeman, L. A. (2000). Closing the Shop: Information cartels and Japan's mass media. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. Chapter 3. Schwartz, F. and Pharr, S. (eds.) (2003). The State of Civil Society in Japan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Introduction.
Public participation and collaborative governance	Arnstein, S (1969). “A Ladder of Citizen Participation.” Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35, pp.216-224. Carpenter, S. L., & Kennedy, W. J. D. (1988). Managing Public Disputes. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Chapter 2 [before case study part]

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