About

This course aims to get students thinking about politics and policy as a part of their everyday life. We treat politics as a struggle among competing advocates trying to persuade others to see the world as they do, working within a context that is structured primarily by institutions and cultural ideas. Over the course of the semester, we raise the following questions: How do conditions become problems for government to solve, while other problems fail to attract government’s attention? What sorts of political arguments are persuasive, and why? Why do we choose the policies we do? Do policies ever “work,” and how would we know? We spend the first section of the course developing a policymaking framework and understanding ideology—taking a whirlwind tour of the American political system. After that, we examine case studies in a variety of policy areas: gun control, pandemic relief, foreign policy, financial regulation, immigration reform, water policy, LGBTQ rights, and environmental policy.

The goal of the course is to provide you with the tools to be an informed, engaged, and effective democratic citizen going forward, knowledgeable about how public policy is made in the American context, able to analyze political inputs and outputs, and armed with insights into how to make your voice heard. Regardless of your major or career, public policy will touch your life and work. This course will help you understand why public policy takes the forms it does and what you can do about it. Along the way you will be exercising your essay writing and speaking skills in satisfaction of the CI-H components of the course.

Course Staff

Instructor:

Andrea Campbell

Department of Political Science

acampbel@mit.edu                                                                                                                    

Office Hours: Wednesday, 3:30-5:00 PM Eastern Time via Zoom, or by appointment

Teaching Assistants:

Cody Adkins (coryadk@mit.edu);   Nick Kelly (nkelly@mit.edu); Gabriel Nahmias (gnahmias@mit.edu)