Course

Policy Analysis: Concepts and Techniques

Protego >  Training >  Policy Analysis: Concepts and Techniques

The course was designed especially for the master students in European Studies of the College of Europe, Natolin.

  • Duration: 8 hours
  • Available at the College of Europe
  • Target: Master students

This workshop introduces the aims, scope and some tools of policy analysis. The course focuses on techniques, tools, and ‘ways to read policies’ that can provide the students with ingenuity and creativity when dealing with policy topics in their career. The lesson first zooms on the history of policy analysis, and quickly moves to the essential vocabulary we need to understand and discuss public policies.

The core of the workshop is the presentation of two tools and their techniques:

  • the Institutional Grammar Tool (IGT) of the Elinor Ostrom’s school
  • the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF)

During the workshop we play with the tools thanks to sessions based on the simple coding of short texts following the templates of the IGT and of the NPF. These two tools have been chosen because (a) they are extremely versatile (b) they open our minds by showing how we can ‘see policies’ as systems of rules (IGT) and narratives.

This workshop was organized for and delivered at the College of Europe of Natolin in November 2020.

Read more

Objectives and Learning outcomes

By completing this workshop, you will learn about the basic concepts of policy analysis and how to use them appropriately in your own study and writing. In terms of skills, you will acquire an operational understanding of two important tools, that is the Institutional Grammar Tool and the Narrative Policy Framework.

Finally, you will learn how to work in groups to code text and how to present and discuss your findings with other groups.

These Learning Outcomes are intended to improve your understanding and skills in ways that can be transferred to other courses at the CoE and – should you code policy-relevant text – your essays and dissertation.

Programme

Session 1

The analysis of public policy as interdisciplinary enterprise

Analysis of Policy and for Policy. Aims, scope and normative issues in the discipline Public Policy

(Very Short) history and traditions: Pragmatism, Policy Sciences, Theories of the Policy Process, the Stage Heuristics

Session 2

Basic vocabulary: policy, policy process, law, decision, process, output, outcome (examples and discussion)

Zooming on Theories and Tools: Institutions and Discourse. “Seeing” policies as rules and as narratives.

Session 3

The Institutional Grammar Tool. Lecture followed by IGT Exercise (manual coding)

Session 4

The Narrative Policy Framework. Lecture followed by NPF Exercise (manual coding)

Session 5

Collective discussion of your findings and how the tools can be useful to you in the remainder of your year at CoE

Readings

Basic readings:
-Paul Cairney, 2020. Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues. Macmillan. 2nd Edition.
-Paul Cairney, Key Policy Theories and Concepts in 1000 words, https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/1000-words/
-Bruno Dente, 2014. Understanding Policy Decisions, Springer
-William Dunn, 2017. Public Policy Analysis: An Integrated Approach. Routledge. 6th Edition.
-Christopher Knill and Jale Tosun. 2020. Public Policy: A New Introduction, Macmillan. 2nd Edition.
-Michael Mintrom, 2018. Public Policy: Investing for a Better World. Oxford University Press.

IGT session:
-Claire Dunlop, Jonathan Kamkhaji and Claudio Radaelli. 2019. A sleeping giant awakes? The rise of the Institutional Grammar Tool in policy research, Journal of Chinese Governance, vol.4(2): 163-180.
-Saba Siddiki et al. 2019. Institutional analysis with the institutional grammar. Policy Studies Journal. Early view https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12361

NPF session:
-Liz Shanahan, Mike Jones, Mark McBeth and Claudio Radaelli 2017. The narrative policy framework. In C Weible and P.A. Sabatier, Theories of the Policy Process, Westview Press.
-Liz Shanahan, Mike Jones and Mark K McBeth. 2018. How to conduct a narrative policy framework study. The Social Science Journal, 55(3), September: 332-345.
-O’Bryan, T., Dunlop, C. A., & Radaelli, C. M. (2014). Narrating the ‘Arab Spring’: Where expertise meets heuristics in legislative hearings. In Michael D. Jones, Elizabeth A. Shanahan, & Mark K. McBeth (Eds.), The science of stories: Applications of narrative policy framework. Palgrave Macmillan.

Other books on Public Policy Analysis that may be useful after the workshop:
-William Dunn, 2017. Public Policy Analysis: An Integrated Approach. Routledge. 6th Edition.
-Christopher Knill and Jale Tosun. 2020. Public Policy: A New Introduction, Macmillan. 2nd Edition.
-Michael Mintrom, 2018. Public Policy: Investing for a Better World. Oxford University Press.
-Saba Siddiki, 2020. Understanding and Analyzing Policy Design, Cambridge University Press.
-Diane Stone, 2019. Making Global Policy, Cambridge University Press.