CODE | PPL5003 | |||||||||
TITLE | Politics and Public Policy | |||||||||
UM LEVEL | 05 - Postgraduate Modular Diploma or Degree Course | |||||||||
MQF LEVEL | 7 | |||||||||
ECTS CREDITS | 5 | |||||||||
DEPARTMENT | Policy, Politics and Governance | |||||||||
DESCRIPTION | This study-unit explores why and how communities and groups organise themselves politically; it reviews classical and contemporary political theories. The Unit examines ways in which society responds to the challenges of change and continuity, and innovation and tradition, through the political and policymaking processes. On the one hand, policymaking – especially public policymaking – always takes place within an already established configuration of socio-political and politico-legal relations. In this sense, these relations both enable and constraint the public policymaking process. On the other hand, public policymaking is a productive political process which can reshape, reconfigure and reinvent these same socio-political and politico-legal relations. This fundamental political character of public policy calls for an examination of the underlying socio-political and politico-legal structures, practices and assumptions. This study-unit thus examines the political character of public policy by analysing key socio-political and politico-legal concepts such as legitimacy, power and legality and by examining different models of democracy and their respective conceptions of policymaking; it also examines recent and current socio-political issues relevant to public policy. Study-unit Aims: This study-unit provides the students with a critical encounter with basic concepts of political philosophy through the study of various models of political systems, socio-political phenomena and the political character of public policy. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Explain basic political concepts and their relevance to public policy; - Explain, critically assess and compare the major theories of democracy and their respective conceptions of the public policymaking process; - Critically assess political, social and ethical issues requiring regulation. 2. Skills By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Critically assess and analyse socio-political issues and public policymaking in terms of basic political concepts and the theories of democracy; - Plan and lead a designed deliberation project. Main Text/s: Berry, J. (2011). Integration and Multiculturalism: Ways towards Social Solidarity. Papers on Social Representations, 20: 2.1-2.21. Canovan, M. (2005). The People. Cambridge: Polity. Introduction (pp.1-9) and Chap. 1 (pp.10-39). Crouch, C. Five minutes with Colin Crouch: “A post-democratic society is one that continues to have and to use all the institutions of democracy, but in which they increasingly become a formal shell” (Interview text) Fung, A. (2006). Democratizing the Policy Process. In: M. Moran, M. Rein & R. E. Goodin, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy, 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 667 - 683. Galston, W. A. (2007). An Old Debate Renewed. Daedalus, 136(4): 10. Hay, C. (2014). Neither real nor fictitious but ‘as if real’? A political ontology of the state. British Journal of Sociology, 65 (3). Held, David (2006). Models of Democracy. 3rded. Cambridge: Polity. Kouki, H., & Triandafyllidou, A. (2012). Migrants and (In)tolerant Discourses in Greek Politics (Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence) Meehan, E. From Government to Governance, Civic Participation and ‘New Politics’; the Context of Potential Opportunities for the Better Representation of Women Parkinson, J. (2003). Legitimacy Problems in Deliberative Democracy. Political Studies, 51. Redhead, B. (1988). Political Thought From Plato to NATO. Chicago. Streeck, W. (2012). Citizens as Consumers, New Left Review 76 (July-August) Stone, D. (2012). Policy Paradox. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Taylor, C. (1995). ‘Invoking Civil Society’, in Taylor, Philosophical Arguments. Harvard: Harvard UP. Supplementary Text/s: - Beetham, D. (2013). The Legitimation of Power. 2nd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. - Bevir, Mark and R.A.W. Rhodes (2010), The State as Cultural Practice (Oxford: OUP) - Habermas, J. (1996). Three Normative Models of Democracy. In: S. Benhabib, ed., Democracy and Difference, 1st ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 21 – 30. - Laclau, Ernesto (1996), ‘The Death and Resurrection of the Theory of Ideology’, Journal of Political Ideologies 1. - Osiander, Andreas (2007), Before the State: Systemic Political Change in the West from the Greeks to the French Revolution (Oxford: OUP). |
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STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | |||||||||
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2024/5. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |