Below is the draft introduction to a paper that I am writing for a Special Issue paper on Teaching Policy Analysis for Gestión y Análisis de Políticas Públicas (GAPP) (here is the version with the references if you want to sing along).
When we teach policy analysis, we can focus on how to be a policy analyst or how to situate the act of policy analysis within a much wider policymaking context. Ideally, we would teach and learn about both. Indeed, this aim is central to Lasswell’s vision for the policy sciences, in which the analysis of policy (and policymaking) informs analysis for policy, and both are essential to the pursuit of equality and dignity.
There is the potential to achieve this vision for the policy sciences. Policy analysis texts focus on the individual and professional skills required to act efficiently and effectively in a time-pressured political environment. Further, they are supported by the study of policy analysts to reflect on how analysis takes place, and policy is made, in the real world.
The next step would be to harness the wealth of policy concept- and theory-informed studies to help understand how real world contexts inform policy analysis insights. First, for example, almost all mainstream studies assume or demonstrate that there is no such thing as a policy cycle with clearly-defined and well-ordered stages of policymaking, from defining problems and generating solutions to evaluating their effect. If so, how can policy analysts understand their far more complex policymaking environment, and what skills and strategies do they need to develop to engage effectively? Indeed, these discussions may be essential to preventing the demoralisation of analysts: if they do not learn in advance about the processes and factors than can minimise their influence, how can they generate realistic expectations? Second, if the wider aim is human equality and dignity, insights from critical policy analysis are essential. They help analysts think about what those concepts mean, how to identify and support marginalised populations, and how policy analysis skills and techniques relate to those aims. In particular, they warn against treating policy analysis as a technocratic profession devoid of politics, which may contribute to exclusive research gathering practices, producing too-narrow definitions of problems, insufficient consideration of feasible solutions, and recommendations made about target populations without engaging with the people they claim to serve.
However, this aim is much easier described than achieved. Policy analysis texts, focusing on how to do it, often use insights from policy studies. However, they do so without fully explaining key concepts and theories or exploring their implications. There is simply not enough time and space to do justice to every element, from the technical tools of policy analysis (including cost-benefit analysis) to the empirical findings from policy theories and normative insights from critical policy analysis approaches (e.g. Weimer and Vining, 2017 is already 500 pages long). Policy process research, focusing on what actually happens, may have practical implications for analysts. However, they are often hidden behind layers of concepts and jargon, and – with notable exceptions – their authors seem uninterested in describing the normative importance of, or practical lessons from, theory-informed empirical studies. Further, the cumulative size of this research is overwhelming and beyond the full understanding of experienced specialist scholars. Indeed, it is even difficult to recommend a small number of texts to sum up each approach, which makes it difficult to predict how much time and energy it would take to understand this field, and therefore to demonstrate the payoff from that investment. Further, critical policy analysis is essential, but often ignored in policy analysis texts, and the potential for meaningful conversations with mainstream policy scholars remains largely untapped or resisted .
In that context, policy analysis students embody the problem of ‘bounded rationality’ described famously by Simon. Indeed, Simon’s phrase ‘to satisfice’ sums up a goal-oriented response to bounded rationality: faced with the inability to identify, process, or understand all relevant information, they must seek ways to gather enough information to inform ‘good enough’ choices. Further, since then, policy studies have sought to incorporate insights from individual human, social, and organisational psychology to understand (1) the other cognitive shortcuts that humans use, including gut-level instinct, habit, familiarity with an issue, deeply-held beliefs, and emotions, and (2) their organisations equivalents (since organisations also use rules and standard operating procedures to close off information searches and limit analysis). Human cognitive shortcuts can be described negatively as cognitive biases or more positively as ‘fast and frugal heuristics’. However, the basic point remains: if people draw on allegedly ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ shortcuts to information, we need to find ways to adapt to their ways of thinking, rather than holding onto an idealised version of humans (and policymaking organisations) that do not exist in the real world .
While these insights focus generally on policymakers, they are also essential to engaging with students. Gone – I hope – are the days of lecturers giving students an overwhelmingly huge reading list and expecting them to devour every source before each class, which may help some students but demoralise many others (especially since it seems inevitable that most students’ first engagement with specialist texts and technical jargon will already induce fears about their own ignorance). In their place should be a thoughtful exploration of how much students can actually learn about the wider policy analysis context, focusing on (1) the knowledge and skills they already possess, (2) the time they have to learn, and (3) how new knowledge or skills would relate to their ambitions. If students are seeking fast and frugal heuristics to learn about policy analysis, how should we help them, and what should we teach?
To help answer such questions, first I describe the rationale for the blog that I developed in tandem with teaching public policy, initially at an undergraduate level as part of a wider politics programme, before developing a Master of Public Policy and contributing to shorter executive courses or one-off workshops. This range matters, since the answer to the question ‘what can students learn?’ will vary according to their existing knowledge and time. Second, I describe some examples of the valuable intersection between policy analysis, policy process research, and critical policy analysis to demonstrate the potential payoffs to wider insights. Third, I summarise the rationale for the coursework that I use to foster public policy knowledge and policy analysis skills, including skills in critical thinking and reflection to accompany more specialist analytical skills.
See also:
The finished paper will be translated into Spanish
Paul Cairney: Politics & Public Policy 