PUBP 611 - Evidence and Expertise in the Policy Process

3 Manna.

Public policy analysts and researchers are trained to use rigorous, appropriate methods and data to develop answers to pressing policy questions. These include questions about the design, implementation, and evaluation of policy. But what happens when such policy expertise is ignored by elected officials, the media, and ordinary people? How are policy experts to operate in environments where individuals disparage, distort, or refuse to consider dispassionate policy analysis? This course prepares students trained in public policy to engage such challenging environments as they work to ensure that policy decisions are informed by careful thinking, logic, and evidence and that in practice uphold core democratic values.