PLCY/PWAD 101 Final Exam Study Guide Fall 2023

The ~three hour final exam will consist of about 15 minutes of multiple-choice questions, with the rest short answer and essay questions. It is an open note. You’ll find all parts of the exam in Sakai Tests and Quizzes. Because the test will come from random draws, no test will be exactly the same. For the final exam, you should be able to discuss and evaluate in essay-length detail: ● Charts from assigned reports on domestic and foreign policy; ● Cross-sector collaboration in a particular policy domain; ● The pressing policy problems, sources of information, and broad policy options regarding a major topic in domestic policy (economic inequality/social mobility; social safety net/welfare policy; fiscal policy (esp. national debt); k-12 education policy; higher education policy; “deaths of despair”; healthcare policy; public health policy; immigration policy); ● The use, advantages, and disadvantages of the toolkits and instruments of foreign policy; ● The particular policy area that you wrote about for your policy brief ● One particular policy area that you care deeply about, including the major questions in that area, the major institutional players (government agencies, think tanks, nonprofits, or other advocacy groups, esp. at the federal level), and its relationship to other major U.S. policy arenas. Rohan Suhailah Eddy Maisie Understanding assessed by short answer questions: Review from pre-midterm: o What is and is not public policy (and what public policy ought and ought not cover) ▪ Definitions of public policy: ● Guy Peters: Public policy is the sum of government activities, whether pursued directly or through agents, as those activities have an influence on the lives of citizens. ● Goldsmith: Public policy harnesses institutions (whether public or private, formal or informal) to address collective action problems. ● Public policy is an interdisciplinary academic endeavor that centers problems instead of methodology, aiming not only to describe policy problems but prescribe ways of addressing them. ▪ Public policy is not: ● Policy actions in the corporate world (by corporate players) that does not affect the public as a whole o Stages model of the policy process ▪ o Streams model of the policy process ▪ o Behavioral psychology (including loss aversion) and why it matters for public policy ▪ Confirmation bias – the comfort of confirming what system 1 initially says as a reaction to something, such as a fact or belief ▪ What you see is all there is – Making assumptions off of what little information you know before you receive anything else. System 1 quickly jumps to a conclusion before system 2 can evaluate all parts ● Ex: Jane is a good leader based off of the qualities “personable and intelligent” but the answer might change with the added adjectives of “cruel and corrupt” ▪ Halo effects – Automatically associating good qualities with people you like, and bad qualities with people you don’t like ▪ Loss aversion – People naturally want to avoid feeling like they’re going to lose. They have to gain anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 what they might lose to make it seem rational to them. This can apply for cost-benefit analysis or for blame-avoidance. o Policy feedback (both positive and negative feedback) ▪ when policy influences politics, which then influences later policymaking ▪ Capture: public bureaucracies had become dominated by strong and powerful interest groups ▪ Entrenchment: When a practice or habit becomes very common, so that it is hard to avoid. For example, when creating policy, if an idea about the program is established, it is hard to break or remove that idea after a while. ● Ex. ACA ▪ Fog of enactment: when actors or policy makers are unsure of the consequences of their policy ● “We have to pass this law, so you can find out what’s in it” ● The strengths and weaknesses of cost-benefit analysis ○ Strengths: ■ Helps us consider opportunity costs, trade-offs ■ Forces us to anticipate consequences, eps.. Non-gov costs and benefit ■ Transparency: Forces policymakers to be explicit about calculations ■ Utilitarian ethic -- consideration of aggregate welfare – aligns with many democratic values ● How useful a policy is rather than how attractive it is to the public ■ “Statistical compassion”: policymaking through system 2 rather than system 1 (geared towards “individual compassion”) ■ Can be a good tool for policy production ○ Weaknesses: ■ Lacks nuance of equity/public interest in some cases ● Utilitarianism is not necessarily ethical ○ Utility monster — marginalization ● Difficulty in dealing w/ complexity ■ Discounting and other intergenerational issues: often values present over future ■ Discontributional concerns: Concentrated harms or benefits may violate rights or run contra democratic values ■ Immoral commodification by “pricing the priceless”: Assigns debatable (dubious?) value to non-market goods ■ Pseudo-scientific, susceptible to sophisticated gamesmanship: obscures genuine political debate behind arcane battles over CBA modeling by “expert” economics ■ Assigning dollar values to human elements; lives, decisions, etc Identify and distinguish reputable sources of policy information, including recognizing what you should consider when imbibing products from these sources (esp. policy strengths and ideological reputation): ● Brookings Institution o conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global economy, and economic development ● American Enterprise Institute o a right-leaning think tank researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare. o AEI advocates in favor of private enterprise, limited government, and democratic capitalism ● Heritage Foundation o an American conservative think tank ● RAND Corporation o an American nonprofit global policy think tank[1] created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces o The company has grown to assist other governments, international organizations, private companies and foundations with a host of defense and non-defense issues, including healthcare. o RAND aims for interdisciplinary and quantitative problem solving by translating theoretical concepts from formal economics and the physical sciences into novel applications in other areas, using applied science and operations research ● Peter G. Peterson Foundation