Policy topic: Gun violence, specific in school shooting (please choose a specific state or few states in the United States to focus on, because the law/ policy might be different)
There are 5 parts of this policy analysis:
(Please see the detailed instruction and expectation for each section)
A. Problem Identification & Initial Analysis (ddl: 9/27)
B. Brief Historical & Current Context of the Problem (ddl: 9/27)
C. Theoretical, Empirical and Advocacy Perspectives (ddl: 10/26)
D. Conceptual & Applied Issues & Challenges in Policy Formulation (ddl: 10/26)
E. Comprehensive final draft (ddl: 11/21)
*APA citation and footnotes required. Please make sure to include page number
A. Identify a policy area. You should focus your policy topic area on a particular population (for example, persons with disabilities, children) and on some particular states (for example, domestic violence in California). Identify a social problem within your area of policy interest. For example, if the area is “family violence”, a problem might be “an increasing number of family experience domestic partner violence.”
a) Provide an initial definition of your problem in the introduction and then amplify it with the rest of the element below
b) Examine and document various ways that the social problem you have identified has been defined, including views that do NOT consider your social problem a “problem” at all.
c) Document the groups and subgroups affected by the problem and any differential impact on them: for example, by age, race/ethnicity, income, gender, sexual orientation, disability status, or other demographic characteristic
d) Document the major factors that are believed to cause or contribute to the problem.
e) Briefly describe the current policies designed to address the social problem, including the goals, benefits provided and eligibility requirements.
[Review Bardach, “Step 1” pp. 1-11; Kingdon, Chapter 5]
B. Begin your paper with your social problem definition. Social problems often have a long history that includes perspectives and critical choices which, although made in the past, continue to influence current policy development. This part requires you to understand the historical evolution of your social problem and its related policies.
a) When did this problem first emerge as a public concern?
b) Who or what made it so?
c) For each major era (prior to the contemporary view) in which policy choices were made, describe:
i. How was the problem defined?
ii. What social values were threatened by the problem?
iii. What policy strategy or strategies were chosen?
iv. What assumptions and values were reflected in the choices?
v. How did social, economic and political factors influence the choices?
d) Contemporary view:
i. How is the problem framed today?
ii. What factors in the current social environment influence how this problem is viewed?
iii. What are the major controversies today
e) Conclude with a brief description of how the above affects your definition of the “problem”
[See Bardach, “Step 2”]
C. The purpose of this part is to help you identify the policy logic that will inform the development of your own proposal. Be sure to provide your current social problem definition at the beginning of this paper. Your review should include literature and analyses that address:
a) Empirical knowledge used to understand the problem and its contributing factors.
b) Social, economic, sociocultural, political and/or behavioral theory frameworks that are used to explain the problem (these may be explicit or implicit in the literature)
c) The advocacy positions of key stakeholders (including opposing positions)
d) Based on this analysis identify and briefly describe three (2-3) relevant current policy choices:
i. “Policy choices” refers to existing policies.
ii. If there are no existing policies, develop options based on the most recent research and points of controversy that have been identified.
[See Kingdom, Chapter 3]
D. Executive agencies, such as the US Department of Education (e.g. No Child Left Behind legislation) or US Department of Health & Human Services’ Administration for Children & Families (e.g. TANF legislation), as well as Congress (and the Court) have responsibility for the formulation, interpretation and implementation of policy. Effectiveness is a function of the policy itself and the regulatory and administrative decisions that are made to structure the programs. For the 2-3 possible policy choices that you identified:
a) Describe the strengths and weakness of the implementation process.
b) Describe the regulations, program design, organizational capacity and interaction with other policies and evaluations.
c) Analyze the tensions, contradictions, and conflicts that underpin the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of policy
[See Bardach, Appendices B, C & D; Dye, Chapters 3, 8 & 9]
E. PUTTING THEM TOGETHER: Comprehensive final draft (ddl: 11/22)
Based on your work thus far, prepare a comprehensive policy analysis and policy proposal. The paper should be comprised of the previous papers, edited for coherency and content, that summarizes the critical aspects of the previous assignments, as asked for in # 1-4 below. The majority of the paper should focus on #5 and #6 below.
1. The nature of the social problem/social issue that your proposal will address
a) definition
b) scope of the problem
c) who is affected
2. 2. What research tells us about the problem and possible solutions
3. 3. The visible stakeholders, their interest and position
4. Discuss the policies you have researched, analyzed, and written about. Summarize policies briefly. Describe the policy you choose to change or amend in more detail, in relation to the policy’s:
a) goals
b) provisions
c) values underlying the strategy (especially equity, equality, adequacy)
d) who gets what – benefits and allocation principles
e) service delivery strategy
f) Issues, challenges, and problems and strategy
5. 5. Discuss the changes you would recommend to your policy choice (from #4 above) (e.g. an extension of a current policy; a deletion from a current policy), and the rationale for selection (e.g. why your changes might help the policy better achieve the desired goals)
6. 6. Path for your recommended change:
a) Who (institutions) might sponsor the proposal?
b) What congressional committees have jurisdiction?
c) What are the judicial/legal dimensions of proposal?
d) How does the social context contribute/detract from possible passage?
e) What groups might be mobilized to support the passage?
f) What opposition needs to be addressed?
g) What influence strategies might be needed to secure passage?
