Politics 135: Public Policy Implementation
and Evaluation
Pomona College, Fall 2007
Professor David Menefee-Libey
Course Description:
This course has three purposes. It introduces students to the focused study of public policy in the United States, with particular attention to how the government implements policies and how we can evaluate the impact of policy on society. Second, it serves as a gateway course to the Public Policy Analysis major. Third, it provides an opportunity for students to design and carry out research in the field, away from Pomona College. I will assume enrolled students have already taken an introductory course in American politics, and that they have a general understanding of how legislation and policy is enacted by the federal government.
This course is built around the premise that politics and policy-making do not end when a bill becomes law. They continue after a bill's passage to the point of implementation, and even afterward. Evaluation of the result, both formal and informal, feeds back into policy development at every stage of the process. That complex process is what we're going to study, and you're going to write and talk about.
The course readings mostly focus on the U.S. federal government's domestic policies, on the assumption that similar frameworks and analyses apply to all levels of government. (In fact, much of the course applies as well to non-governmental institutions.) The course also focuses on policies enacted by legislatures and executives. We will mostly ignore judicially-created and judicially-enacted public policies, as well as international policies, even all of those are tremendously important. Again, many of the same principles apply, but many do not. Students should nevertheless feel free to write about case studies of judicial policy implementation if they wish.
The following required course books are available at the Huntley Bookstore. (This is roughly the order in which we will use them.)
© by David Menefee-Libey
Last modified: September 4, 2007