Governance and Public Policy

Public policy isn't just about what governments decide—it's about why similar problems produce radically different responses across countries and sectors, and how authority has shifted from states acting alone to networks of public and private actors sharing competence. You'll work through the policy cycle comparatively, applying institutional and political theories to real cases via quizzes, a midterm, and a final, building the analytical vocabulary to explain both policy variation and policy change. As a capstone for the PSPA track, it pulls together comparative politics and administration into the kind of framework you'd actually use in policy analysis, advocacy, or graduate research.