Admission requirements
This course is for Master students of Public Administration only.
Description
Governments respond to collective problems and decide on their solutions during the various stages of the policy process. Oftentimes, these problems and their corresponding solutions are subject to deep and/or widespread disagreements occurring between public officials (eg, public managers or policy workers), government organizations and agencies, and individual citizens or citizen groups. Importantly, many of these disagreements go beyond interest-based conflicts to reflect the plurality of values endorsed and proposed by those involved in or affected by governmental policies. Policy-making, then, is value-plural, in the sense that it is permeated by (public) value trade-offs and conflicts at various stages of the policy process.
To understand how (public) values bear on the policy process, we need a systematic and rigorous approach to both. This course presents such an approach by (1) examining normative theories of value in general, and public value in particular, as well as theories of the policy process (with a focus on policy cycle models), (2) analyzing the role of different value-based standards and motivations for policymaking and analysis, and (3) considering strategies for managing value conflicts and trade-offs in the policy process, especially at the implementation and evaluation stages.
A better understanding of the role of values in the policy process from its emergence on the agenda until its ex-post evaluation is fundamental to any kind of professional work related to policymaking, analysis, and evaluation that you may aspire after concluding your Master program.
Course objectives
- Gain advanced knowledge and understanding of value-based policy analysis, with an emphasis on explaining the role of (public) values in the various stages of the policy cycle
- Identify and apply value concepts from public policy analysis and public administration theory to analyze, critically assess and suggest solutions to normative problems encountered in public organizations in multi-level governance systems.
- Reach value-based solutions to public policy problems based on theoretically informed and practically oriented argumentation.
- Effectively and independently carry out a policy analysis and (individually and collectively) present the results of the analysis in a format that is adequate for a broad professional audience or as input for decision-makers.
Timetable
On the right side of programme front page of the e-Prospectus you will find links to the website and timetables, uSis and Brightspace.
Mode of instruction
This course consists of:
4 lectures (attendance is imperative)
3 interactive seminars (attendance is compulsory)
No absence from the seminars is allowed, unless adequately justified (for example, a medical certificate or a message from the study advisor). If the student has an excuse for missing a seminar, the student has to hand in an extra assignment (decided by the seminar instructor) within one week following the seminar the student did not attend. If the student does not hand in the extra assignment in time, the student will be excluded from further participation in the seminar, which leads to a failure for the course. If the student does not have an excuse for missing a seminar, the student has to hand in two extra assignments (decided by the seminar instructor) within one week following the work group the student did not attend. If the student does not hand in the extra assignments in time, the student will be excluded from further participation in the seminar, which leads to a failure of the for the course.
Total 140 hours of which:
14 contact hours
66 self-study hours
30 group project preparation hours
30 final exam paper writing hours.
Assessment method
The assessment method of this course consists of two partial evaluations:
Individual paper (50% of the grade)
Group presentation (50% of the grade)
To pass the course, students need to have a minimum of 5.5 in both components; no compensation is possible.
Partial grades will not remain valid after the exam and the resit of the course.
Reading list
TBA
Registration
Register yourself via MyStudymap for each course, workgroup and exam (not all courses have workgroups and/or exams).
Do so on time, before the start of the course; some courses and workgroups have limited spaces. You can view your personal schedule in MyTimetable after logging in.
Registration for this course is possible from TBA
Leiden University uses Brightspace as its online learning management system. After enrolment for the course in MyStudymap you will be automatically enrolled in the Brightspace environment of this course.
More information on registration via MyStudymap can be found on this page.
Please note: guest-/contract-/exchange students do not register via MyStudymap but via uSis.
Contact
Dr. D.A. Salazar Morales d.a.salazar.morales@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Dr. A. Poama a.poama@fgga.leidenuniv.nl
Dr. M.M. Young m.m.young@fgga.leidenuniv.nl