Discussion Thread: Your Role as a Policy Analysist
Explain why you have chosen to pursue a doctoral degree in public policy, and in
your chosen cognate. (If you have not chosen a cognate, explain why.)
Describe your professional experience and skills, including any specific knowledge
on which you can build in your scholarship on public policy.
Elaborate on the ways in which your Christian worldview or calling have shaped the
way that you approach your understanding of the public policy issues that concern
you.
1. My whole life I have been involved in politics in one way or another: I was named after
Ronald Reagan, attended all of two of my uncles’ campaigns for country judge, my
father’s City Council/Mayoral campaigns, and now his State Representative campaign.
For as long as I can remember, some form of politics is what I have wanted to do with my
life. Though the exact what has changed through my life, from being president to a
professor of political science. My undergraduate degree is in Public Administration and
my master’s degree is in Political Science. Over the last couple of years, with everything
going on in the world, I started thinking more about the issues and policies presented and
enacted and the effect they have on the people. So, I decided this was what my doctorate
degree needed to be in, Public Policy. I chose Social Policy as my cognate because that is
what I have felt drawn to and passionate about the most in the last three years and in
general, social issues have become the forefront of change and on people’s minds.
2. Most of my professional experience is in retail and teaching preschool/daycare. Policies
on different areas can and do affect all aspects of life, i.e., shopping (retail), and
education. I do not have any real professional experience or skills specifically dealing
with public policy, but I have been able to see how policies affect the areas my
professional experience is in. With retail, one can look at sales over certain years and see
the changes in sales numbers and link it to what is going on in the economy at that time.
You can then use that to predict what sales will be like in a future sense or current sense.
You can even break it down into departments and see what people find necessary to
continue to purchase even in economic hard times. With the preschools and daycares, you
can see the influence of policies in the education part of things and policies concerning
welfare.
3. My Christianity and Christian worldview have greatly impacted the way I approach my
understanding of social policy issues. And here is how: Jesus and his view of the people
he came to save regardless of class, employment, race, gender, etc. is what shapes my
approach to most social issues and policies. Viewing Jesus as essentially a social activist
who confronted the social structures of his day fighting for the common good influences
how I should be fighting for the common good against the social structures of my day
through social policy. Jesus became the face of liberation for marginalized groups and an
enemy of the state because of the things he preached. My Christian worldview has taught
me that in being a follower of Jesus I should aim to be like him in everything – so when it
comes to social issues and social policy, I believe I should also be the activist for the
oppressed and marginalized people of this country.
Replies:
1. I considered not picking a specific cognate and just studying Public Policy in the
general sense. Because like you mentioned, as Birkland explains how public
policy is intertwined with wide variety of disciplines, such as, economics, history,
sociology, public administration, etc. (Birkland 2015, 3). And I think it is very
important to understand public policy in the broad term. Especially since this field
does have an overlapping aspect it is important to know public policy in a general
way as well as in the more specific way if one chooses.
2. I very much look forward to hearing your perspective throughout this class,
especially as a police officer. The quote from Engster’s, A Public Ethics of Care
for Policy Implementation is very interesting because that is absolutely accurate.
Street bureaucrats are very important when it comes to their interactions with
citizens. I am curious your take on the policy changes being called for to “defund
the police”, which is just to scale back on funding and put it toward other services
to handle certain calls instead of police, such as, social services or mental health
professionals. An article by Rushin and Michalski (2020) had an interesting take
on this situation. They suggest that defunding on a whole would potentially be
dangerous in certain areas that are already not funded enough, such as, poorer
areas (Rushin and Michalski 2020). If those areas were defunded more to supply
other services, then that could come with unintended consequences. Their solution
is to “view policing as a public good that ought to be equitably distributed across
the population according to need” (Rushin and Michalski 2020, 277). This way,
much like education is treated, the funding of local police departments would be
equalized by need. This, combined with a specified budget for training and
accountability, will be beneficial to the public good while not taking away money
and resources for other services within the community. I do not necessarily
disagree with their solution or suggestion; however, I think a big portion of the
movement is to substitute who answers what types of calls instead of it always
being a police presence. I was just curious how you, being in law enforcement,
felt this proposed policy change in general could help or hurt the community?
References:
Birkland, Thomas A., 2015. An Introduction to the Policy Process: Theories, Concepts, and
Models of Public Policy Making. Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor & Francis Group. Accessed
February 8, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Rushin, Stephen, and Roger Michalski. 2020. Police Funding.
Florida Law Review 72 (2): 277-330
1. I understand and sympathize with your struggle to choose a cognate. For me it was
between studying public policy in general as a whole and picking a specialty. Ultimately,
like you have mentioned, I decided to choose social policy as my cognate. When reading
the first three chapters for this week, Birkland said something interesting that almost
made me feel more confident in my decision, he said, “..even the most intensely
interested participants in the policy process are not concerned with every issue” (Birkland
2015, 13). For me, this solidified my decision, and I knew that picking the area I was the
most passionate about was the correct choice. I hope for you the answer will be clear to
you soon in a very solid way.
2. I like how you brought up your skills in thinking and speaking strategically and being
able to relay information. Originally, I thought this class and degree would focus a lot on
theories, which are extremely important, but I also wanted to have more of the practical
applications as well for being an active participant in the policy process. I agree your
skills will be very useful, especially in the practical and applied aspect of public policy.
When writing my answers, I did not really consider the skills I have gained from being in
the retail industry and learning how to communicate with all kinds of people as beneficial
to a public policy degree. However, reading your post and even re-reading the first
chapter of Birkland’s book I realized those skills are important to public policy especially
in the practical and applied study of public policy. Also, in reading Engster’s article about
policy implementation most citizens interact with a street-level bureaucrat and not as
much with the state. In the article it says, “Because laws and policies tend to be framed in
general and often ambiguous terms, street-level bureaucrats necessarily exercise some
discretion in interpreting and applying them to individual citizens and cases” (Engster
2020, 1). Since this is the case, I see now more than before how these communication
skills are extremely important and can be expanded on through this course and program.
Thank you for bringing that to my attention.
References:
Birkland, Thomas A., 2015. An Introduction to the Policy Process: Theories, Concepts, and
Models of Public Policy Making. Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor & Francis Group. Accessed
February 8, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central.
Engster, Daniel. 2020. A Public Ethics of Care for Policy Implementation. American Journal
of Political Science 64 (3): 621-633
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)
