POL S 405 C: Advanced Seminar in American Politics

Social policy in the United States has long been used as a tool to address inequities and economic disparities--but does it succeed? How would we know? And what if this very tool is responsible for creating and exasperating inequality in America? In this course you will learn how social policy is designed, implemented, and evaluated. To fully understand these aspects of social policy, you will consider various historical examples of policies that have aimed to address poverty, unaffordable housing, disparities in health care, immigration and gender-based violence. As we explore these histories you will be empowered to evaluate how social policy impacts people differently depending on its design, eligibility requirements, the politics surrounding the issue, the discretion of policy actors, and the processes used to implement it. In this class you will wrestle with the difficult choices of how to create a policy intended to address inequality in the United States and will be tasked with the ultimate goal of proposing a policy yourself in the final project of the course. The seminar is a 3 hour one-day class. During each class you will be given a real policy task to complete, and you will be expected to complete the pre-assignment before each class to prepare for this in-class exercise. The exercises and the class are designed to give you real experience evaluating, designing, and advocating for social policy.