210141 VO Public Policy (2023W)

How does politics work? What processes, relationships and contexts lead to political decisions? Why are some decisions not taken? What can we know about it at all? How can we analyse all this scientifically (even if we don't know everything)?

The lecture aims to provide students with basic competences to understand political problems and phenomena, to analyse the approach of political actors and to identify the interests behind them. The focus is on social power relations, political systems, social, economic, institutional and other framework conditions as well as their effects on political actors and their ability to act.

The aim is not only to get to know different approaches to policy field analysis, but also to discuss and apply them together. The focus is mainly, but not exclusively, on examples from the policy field of environmental and resource policy. There is also room for discussion in the lecture; critical thinking and independent analysis skills are to be promoted in this way.

Main issues, concepts, terms of the course:
Politics, policy, polity, public policy, policy cycle, policy output, policy outcome, policy impact, policy change, political actors, stakeholders, actors, networks, structures, institutions, policy design, instruments, agenda setting, science-policy interface ("evidence-based policy"), policy evaluation, globalisation, participation, policy consultation, etc.

The detailed programme will be presented at the beginning of the semester and will be accessible via the learning platform moodle.