POL 455 — Public Policy

BA BA Political Studies · Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

The public policy course generally examines the process of policymaking. Public policy is considered by scholar as (1) a process to authoritatively allocate values; (2) the process of determining “who gets what, when, and how; (3) compromises among political parties that sometimes lead to weak policy outcomes, among others. A recognizable fact is that policy making involves extreme politics as policy makers grapple with the best policy out comes in the midst of scarce resources and political influences from different individuals, interest and political groups within and outside their countries. Therefore, the course seeks to examine the different scholarly views on policymaking as means of understanding the fundamentals of policy outcomes. The course will generally examine: (i) The Nature of Public Policy: the definition of public policy, the nature of policy players/actors, and the essence of studying public policy; (ii) The Art of Making Public Policy: the process, structure, and context of policymaking; (iii) The Composition of Policy Players: Institutional and Non-Institutional Actors; (iv) The Policy Game: rules, strategies, culture, and resources that goes into policymaking. It is expected that student will have a general idea of the policy process covering the determinants of public policy and the different policy players as well as their influences and the politics and games that goes into policymaking.

Credits

3

Level

Level 400

Course details from BA Political Studies - Department of History & Political Studies.