Course Of Public Policy Research Articles

Using Debates in Public Policy Courses

Using Debates in Public Policy Courses

Incrementalism as Dramaturgy: The Case of the Nuclear Freeze

This article analyzes the controversy surrounding recent efforts to enact a nuclear freeze resolution in terms of Charles O. Jones's "public satisfying" model. Jones argues that nonincremental policy departures are possible when an aroused public opinion is focused on an issue, pushing it to the forefront of the institutional agenda and leading to a new course in public policy. Examination of the nuclear freeze case, however, provides only partial support for Jones's model. A dramatic increase in mass public concern over nuclear issues did advance the issue on the congressional agenda, but the subsequent process of majority building led to compromises that produced a freeze resolution that was an incremental change at most. The article concludes with an alternative model to explain these events.

USING PRODUCER INCENTIVES TO ACHIEVE SOCIAL OBJECTIVES: AN ASSESSMENT OF THE MARKETPLACE AND PUBLIC POLICIES

The purpose of this paper is to recast the light in which we have come to evaluate public policy initiatives and open the door for a more careful examination o f the effects markets have on the course of public policies employing producer incentives to achieve policy goals. Specifically, the paper will review the past experience of urban renewal to show the relationship between policy objectives and outcomes when policy is designed to work through the marketplace. By arguing that market incentives cons train policy outcomes, it is maintained that policies which are judged to have failed in its goals may in reality have succeeded when viewed in terms of normal market operations.

Using PSI to Teach the Introductory Public Policy Course

This article examines the author's use of the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) to teach the introductory public policy course. After describing this alternative teaching technique, student performance and evaluations of the course are examined.

A Course in Energy and Public Policy-A Liberal-Art Course for Power Engineers and Public Administrators

We present herein a report on an interdisciplinary course in Energy and Public Policy, that is now required of all Power Systems Engineering students at Northeastern University. The course is based on objectives put forth by T.J. Nagel [1]. Briefly, these are: (1) To provide a broad overview of the technical, economic, social and political aspects of the energy problem; (2) To enable the student to gain insight into the wide variety of rational and irrational arguments that surround the energy industry; (3) To enable the student to develop effective methods for dealing with complex interdisciplinary problems where he/she is but one member of a team; and (4) To help the student develop improved written and verbal communication skills. This paper describes our first effort at balancing and combining the methodologies of seminar, lecture and debate to work toward our four objectives. We were quite successful in producing a course that aroused enthusiasm. The course proved far more effective than we anticipated in developing communication skills. On the other hand, an unbiased examination of the students' papers and debates would have found them long on enthusiasm but short on scholarship. This paper presents our analysis of why this happened and how we intend to improve upon our initial effort.

A Course in Public Policy and Mental Health: Method and Issues

A Course in Public Policy and Mental Health: Method and Issues

Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles.

Full Recovery or Stagnation? By ALVIN H. HANSEN. New York: W.H. Norton and Company, Inc. 1938. Pp. 350. ($4.00) Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles. By ALVIN H. HANSEN. New York: W. H. Norton and Company, Inc. 1941. Pp. ix, 462. ($3.60) Full Recovery or Stagnation? has been largely put together book reviews and other papers which have appeared time to time elsewhere. To a lesser extent this is also true of Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles. Both books in a general way focus about the problem of how to maintain full employment having regard to the rhythm of business activity. Possibly owing partly to the way these volumes have been built up, the material in neither appears to have been reduced to a unity. The author's viewpoint seems to vary as he passes the consideration of one topic to another. In the earlier volume Hansen appears to be very distrustful of the ability of democratic processes to cope with modern economic problems. He stresses the unlikelihood of democracy pursuing for long a consistent monetary policy and points out that modern democracies have so often demonstrated a lack of capacity in self-control. In the later volume he puts forward the idea of a dual economy that will provide an escape from a highly regimented private industrial system on the one side and an equally highly regimented collectivist system on the other. This, one gathers, he thinks might be worked out on a basis of compromise that would enable democracy to survive. Professor Hansen has been enormously impressed by the 1923-9 boom in the United States and the appalling amount of unemployment and suffering which arose in the succeeding depression. He urges that a course of public policy be pursued that will ensure the maintenance of full employment and prevent the recurrence of depressions. His proposition is large expenditures by the government to maintain income until private investment develops again to high levels.' The basis of Professor Hansen's position is his view that such a large proportion of income is saved annually that time to time consumption does not absorb the flow of consumption goods currently produced. In the then existing state of public tastes and production costs every effective demand is satisfied. There are no outlets for new investment.

Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles

Full Recovery or Stagnation? By ALVIN H. HANSEN. New York: W.H. Norton and Company, Inc. 1938. Pp. 350. ($4.00) Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles. By ALVIN H. HANSEN. New York: W. H. Norton and Company, Inc. 1941. Pp. ix, 462. ($3.60) Full Recovery or Stagnation? has been largely put together from book reviews and other papers which have appeared from time to time elsewhere. To a lesser extent this is also true of Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles. Both books in a general way focus about the problem of how to maintain full employment having regard to the rhythm of business activity. Possibly owing partly to the way these volumes have been built up, the material in neither appears to have been reduced to a unity. The author's viewpoint seems to vary as he passes from the consideration of one topic to another. In the earlier volume Hansen appears to be very distrustful of the ability of democratic processes to cope with modern economic problems. He stresses the unlikelihood of democracy pursuing for long a consistent monetary policy and points out that modern democracies have "so often demonstrated a lack of capacity in self-control." In the later volume he puts forward the idea of a dual economy that will provide an escape "from a highly regimented private industrial system on the one side and an equally highly regimented collectivist system on the other." This, one gathers, he thinks might be worked out on a basis of compromise that would enable democracy to survive. Professor Hansen has been enormously impressed by the 1923-9 boom in the United States and the appalling amount of unemployment and suffering which arose in the succeeding depression. He urges that a course of public policy be pursued that will ensure the maintenance of full employment and prevent the recurrence of depressions. His proposition is large expenditures by the government to maintain income until private investment develops again to high levels.' The basis of Professor Hansen's position is his view that such a large proportion of income is saved annually that from time to time consumption does not absorb the flow of consumption goods currently produced. In the then existing state of public tastes and production costs every effective demand is satisfied. There are no outlets for new investment.