PA 5012 is also offered in Spring 2025
PA 5012 is also offered in Fall 2024
PA 5012 is also offered in Spring 2024
PA 5012 is also offered in Fall 2023
PA 5012 is also offered in Spring 2023
PA 5012 is also offered in Fall 2022
PA 5012 is also offered in Spring 2022
PA 5012 is also offered in Fall 2021
Spring 2023 | PA 5012 Section 002: The Politics of Public Affairs (65654)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- A-F or Audit
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- In Person
- Class Attributes:
Online Course
- Enrollment Requirements:
- Major or minor in Public Policy or Science/Technology/Environmental Policy
- Times and Locations:
Regular Academic Session
Tue,
Thu 08:15AM - 09:30AM
UMTC, West Bank
Hubert H Humphrey Center 25
- Enrollment Status:
Open (24 of 30 seats filled)
- Also Offered:
- Course Catalog Description:
- Politics is how we make collective decisions about matters of shared consequence. This course examines politics and introduces students to key concepts and skills needed for effective political analysis. The central themes of the course focus on power; institutions and organizations; discourse; and citizenship.
- Class Notes:
- http://classinfo.umn.edu/?heima019+PA5012+Spring2023
- Class Description:
- This course aims to highlight the politics behind policy. In other words, it aims to examine the way in which actors and institutions have come together to develop, promote, and make decisions that impact a collective group of people. This semester we'll examine the ways in which politics happen - how small groups come together to fight injustice, how large corporations impede the passage of laws and policies, how political institutions and values limit the possibilities for change - both within and outside the United States. In other words, this course will take a global approach to the study of politics and public policy.
This course is designed so that you, future policy practitioner, can best understand the political mechanisms and institutions that promote and impede policy change. To do so, we'll organize this course around four main areas: power, institutions, discourse, and citizenship. We'll examine how these different aspects of politics operate, and importantly, how they impact political action across contexts--both within and outside the United States. The focus on the differences across contexts will help illuminate the challenges and opportunities for political change across a number of different policy areas.
- Learning Objectives:
- By focusing on global political phenomena, utilizing social science theories and methodology, and examining varied global perspectives on politics, this course aims to: 1) Increase your understanding of the different ways in which power is manifested, exerted, controlled, and manipulated in the establishment of public policy. B) Strengthen your knowledge of the ways in which both formal and informal institutions shape, limit, encourage, and prevent public policy, as well as how citizens and political actors utilize political institutions within authoritarian and democratic contexts to advance public policy goals. C) Develop knowledge regarding how discourse shapes and is shaped by public policy, how actors and institutions limit and promote discourse, and effective strategies for changing and promoting public discourse. D) Wrestle with the issue of citizenship in both democratic and authoritarian nations, and how citizenship is manifested, expressed, challenged, and limited in these contexts.
I also expect that by taking this course you will gain or improve upon certain skills, such as: A) Critically reading and understanding advanced academic texts, such as journal articles and books. B) Academic research, such as identifying sources, developing an argument, coherently supporting said argument with secondary sources, etc. C). Argumentation and persuasion, particularly with regard to a specific public policy outcome. D) Visual communication techniques, particularly in the presentation of academic work.
- Grading:
You will complete a policy portfolio project on a topic of your choice. This portfolio asks you to describe the areas of power, institutions, and discourse as they apply to a topic of your choice, and your plan to change/transform these areas to achieve your desired public policy outcome. The portfolio is worth 85% of your final grade and consists of three writing assignments (each worth 20%) and a final presentation (25%).
The final aspect you will be graded on is leading class discussion and overall participation (worth 15%).
- Class Format:
- Discussion and Lecture
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/65654/1233
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 13 January 2023
ClassInfo Links - Spring 2023 Public Affairs Classes Taught by Katrina Heimark