Dr Simon Bastow and Prof Nicholas Barr

This course is compulsory on the Master of Public Policy. This course is not available as an outside option.

This course will introduce students to the application of social science literatures to concrete policy issues with significance for developed and developing countries. The course will be organised around ‘big topics’ which are both being actively discussed in the policy world and researched in the academic world. The emphasis will be on applying different theoretical and disciplinary approaches to analyse a particular policy topic and problem. The precise topics will be decided each year, depending on academic and practitioner availability. We aim to attract speakers who are working at the highest levels of research and practice. The course explores these big topics specifically as ‘craft of government’ challenges, with emphasis on the integration of economics, political science, public management, and philosophy. It offers MPP students an opportunity to enrich and integrate their learning from these other core disciplines of the programme.

This course is delivered through a combination of pre-recorded lectures, flipped lectures, interactive seminars, and group-project tutorials, totalling a minimum of 35 hours in Lent Term and Summer Term. Office hours will be available for students who would like to discuss the content of the course or their group projects in more detail. There are 11 weeks of teaching in the Lent Term and no Reading Week. Group project tutorials will continue into the latter weeks of the Summer Term.

Formative coursework will include ongoing support and tutorials for group policy projects, from setting them up at the beginning of the Lent Term through until the submission of final project deliverables in the Summer Term. Students will work in project groups of no more than 5 people and will meet with course faculty to develop (a) the proposed focus of the project, (b) the proposed research method and approach, (c) identification of relevant existing research and literature, and (d) an outline of the structure of the project. Groups will a 2 -page outline and received detailed comments on the outline in the LT.

This will depend on the topics covered week by week.  A full reading list for each week will be provided at the start of the course.

Report (50%), group presentation (20%) and memo based on individual presentations (30%) in the ST.
50% final report
20% group project presentation
30% written memo based on individual presentations, due in ST