The status of the profession: the role of PhD and masters programs in public policy education

This chapter traces the evolution of graduate level public affairs education in the United States in terms of focus, mission, curriculum, institutional locus, and enrollments, with attention to similarities and differences at the masters and doctoral levels. It highlights the role of two key professional associations in the evolution of the field, NASPAA and APPAM. It also examines some persistent challenges regarding how broadly or narrowly to define the field, how clearly to differentiate among the related fields of study, and how to define and ensure quality.

Public policy education in the United States

Training for policy analysis practice has evolved over forty years to a standardized core, including economics, statistics, management, politics/political science, and a practicum. The original model applied disciplinary methodology to the selection of better alternatives among possible policies for governments and nonprofit organizations. The most important mid-course correction in MPP history was the introduction of public management requirements in recognition that MPP alumni would (i) manage ‘policy shops’ and operating agencies as their careers advanced, and (ii) should advise on policy with awareness of implementability and manageability issues. Variations on this model include courses in law and public administration, concentrations in issue areas like health or environmental policy, and joint degrees with other professional schools. Current issues from which future evolution of the MPP enterprise is likely to flow include tensions between methodologies used by MPP faculty in research and inclusion of models like Bayesian inference and behavioral economics that may be more applicable in professional practice. Another source of variation is pedagogical: some courses offer the familiar ‘Theory T [for telling]’ model whereby content is presented didactically in lectures with discussion assigned to sections, while others move to ‘Theory C [for coaching]’ convention where content presentation is left to readings, and meetings are devoted to using the content to analyze policy questions.

Committees and legislatures

The United States Congress, despite its poor reputation for policymaking, has substantial analytical capacity. While congressional committees possess some of this capability, most of the expertise resides in its three support agencies—the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Within their relative portfolios each of these three agencies has provided the Congress with the ability to make policy, challenge policy proposals coming from the president, and hold the executive branch accountable. All of these agencies face the challenge of providing thorough and credible analyses within the confines of the legislative process and timetable. Further, they must maintain their credibility for nonpartisan analysis in the midst of a political environment that is only growing more polarized. These agencies supply a great deal of high quality information. The challenge for the Congress is how to make better use of this analysis in crafting more effective public policies.

Policy analysis and evidence-based decision making at the local level

Local governments in the U.S. have many policy responsibilities and relatively more autonomy in decision making than in many countries. Yet, there is a gap in recent research on the use of policy analysis and data-driven decision making in local governments. Historically, the use of data and evidence has influenced change at the local level, from municipal reform in the 20th century to reinventing government. Currently, there are calls for more evidence-based policymaking, and we offer some recent survey evidence on the use of policy analysis and data at the local level, as well as case studies that further demonstrate how evidence gets used. Given great variation in government size, capacity, governance and policies at the local level, along with the potential for experimentation and comparison, greater research attention to local use of analysis and data could contribute to both scholarship and practice.

The practice and promise of policy analysis and program evaluation to improve decision making within the U.S. federal government

This chapter draws on a 40-year history of patchwork efforts to use data to inform the development of public policy and shape its implementation. I begin with a description of the evolution of the policy process, drawing largely on experiences within the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, and Labor. All three agencies have been major supporters of and contributors to advances in the methods of policy analysis and the use of program evaluation to guide decision making. The chapter draws on the roles of these agencies in laying the groundwork for the current emphasis on evidence-based policymaking, in part because of their leadership roles and in part because of the author’s first-hand experience working with these agencies. Of particular note is its attention to the lead up to the present context in which policy analysis and program evaluation are central to both the policy development and monitoring processes. The chapter ends with a discussion of the current movement to create and use credible evidence on the impacts and cost-effectiveness of programs, policies and practices as the foundation for more efficient and effective government and, where evidence is lacking, for integrating a knowledge-building agenda into the roll-out of strategies for change.

Policy analysis in the United States

Four demands have driven the development of policy analysis in the U.S. First, reformers have sought evidence to support their efforts. Beginning with the municipal bureaus of the Progressive Era, advocacy groups have sought supportive policy analysis, resulting in the proliferation of ideologically differentiated think tanks that produce policy research. Second, politicians have recognized the need for specialized expertise to address pressing problems. Operations research grew out of efforts to solve problems facing the U.S. in World War II and led to subsequent efforts to improve bureaucratic decision-making capacity. Third, the growing scope and complexity of government have led to a demand for information to support routine decision processes. Fiscal offices support state budgeting and the Congressional Budget Office, Government Accountability Office, and Congressional Research Service support the routine business of Congress. Fourth, politicians have sought to discipline their own (and especially others’) future actions by mandating that analyses be applied to certain classes of decisions. Legislative requirements that the Army Corps of Engineers consider the benefits of investment projects were introduced at the beginning of the last century, legislative requirements for the completion of environmental impact statements were imposed in 1970, and beginning in 1981, executive orders have required cost-benefit analyses be completed for major agency rulemakings. Higher education has responded to these demands by supplying persons trained specifically in policy analysis.

Public opinion and public policy in the United States

In a properly-functioning democracy, public opinion should not only be correlated with, but also a major determinant of, public policy. Is that the case in the United States? In this chapter, we address that question by covering the major lines of empirical research on the relationship between American public opinion and public policy. We begin with early work that emphasized the limits of popular thinking about government, creating the apparent need for democratic elitism in governmental action. More recent literature includes perspectives from the public policy field, and research on democratic responsiveness at both the national and state levels. Major lines of work emphasize the existence of rational public opinion at the aggregate level which ‘smooths out’ the inconsistencies that may exist within individual policy attitudes. Seminal studies have considered both the degree of correspondence between opinion and policy (i.e., ‘the rational public’), and models that specify how policy responds to opinion (thermostatic responses and the macropolity). Recent methodological innovations have led to new insights about democratic responsiveness in the American states. Our general conclusion is cautiously optimistic: Policy generally does follow the contours of citizen preference, but elites also have opportunities to shape manifestations of public opinion.

Policy analysis in the states

State governments have been called the ‘laboratories of democracy’ due to their high level of policy innovation. A great deal of policy analysis occurs at the state level to support this experimentation, including internal legislative and executive branch research offices, university think tanks, and private and nonprofit organizations that generate studies to influence state policymaking. Given the diversity among the states, it is not surprising that their policy analysis organizations and activities also vary widely. While state-level policy analysis has grown rapidly, it has also fragmented, and many policy analysis organizations face important challenges. This chapter discusses these trends and the future of policy analysis in the states.

The argumentative turn in public policy inquiry: deliberative policy analysis for usable advice

The argumentation turn in policy analysis emerged in the late 1980s as a response to questions concerning social relevance and usable knowledge. Toward this end, it focused on an apparent gap between policy inquiry and real-world policymaking. Basic to the approach was a challenge to the ‘value free’ positivist orientation that has shaped the field of policy analysis, underscoring in particular the limits of the technocratic practices to which it gave rise. After tracing the political and academic debates that surrounded the uses of policy analysis, the chapter presents the alternative argumentative orientation and its post-positivist methodological perspective. The discussion emphasizes its language-based foundations and outlines the logic of a deliberative-analytic framework for the assessment of policy argumentation. It illustrates the ways that policy analysis needs to integrate empirical and normative inquiry. Policy findings and practical policy argumentation are interpreted by decision-makers and citizens in terms of their relations to the larger framework of norms and values that imbue them with social and political meanings. Moving beyond a narrow empirical assignment, the argumentative turn seeks to assist these actors by also drawing out these normative connections. It is, as such, an effort to make good on Harold Lasswell's call for a 'policy science' of democracy.

Introduction

Policy analysis traverses and aims to bridge the space between truth and power. Indeed, policy analysts are trained to be in a position to ‘speak truth to power.’ With its political origins in the United States during the progressive era, the operational origins of policy analysis occurred in the 1950s when both truth and power were more clearly defined and when those in power presumably were interested in truth. Policy analysis emerged from systems analysis, which was applied successfully to clearly delineated problems with unambiguous objective functions....