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Guidelines

This document outlines the guidelines for a research paper examining public policy as the dependent or independent variable for a public policy course. It provides a three-phase process for developing a research outline: [1] choosing a public policy tool within a subfield and context, [2] describing the development of the chosen tool over a period, and [3] selecting an explanatory framework and formulating research questions. The paper should justify the policy choice, describe the tool's development and selected framework, and conclude with a discussion of results in relation to the course objectives. References must be in APA style and a minimum of 9,000 characters excluding the literature page are required.

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Ada Yu
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22 views

Guidelines

This document outlines the guidelines for a research paper examining public policy as the dependent or independent variable for a public policy course. It provides a three-phase process for developing a research outline: [1] choosing a public policy tool within a subfield and context, [2] describing the development of the chosen tool over a period, and [3] selecting an explanatory framework and formulating research questions. The paper should justify the policy choice, describe the tool's development and selected framework, and conclude with a discussion of results in relation to the course objectives. References must be in APA style and a minimum of 9,000 characters excluding the literature page are required.

Uploaded by

Ada Yu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PUBLIC POLICY COURSE

WRITTEN EXAM AS A RESEARCH PAPER: GUIDELINES

These guidelines should help you pass the Public Policy course related to its written exam part, which is a short
paper outlining an exploratory research proposal on public policy as dependent or independent variable.

To prepare a research proposal follow this steps in three phases and write a paper according to ethical and technical
requirements.

THREE PHASES FOR DEVELOPMENT OF A RESEARCH OUTLINE

PHASE ONE: CHOOSING OF PUBLIC POLICY TOOL

1. Choose public policy subfield e.g. economic, social, environmental, cultural or other you like or dislike (with
some emotional value to you).
2. Choose public policy tool in the chosen policy subfield in the first step e.g. central bank interest rates in
economic policy, cash benefits for poor families in social policy, regulations on emissions of specific
pollutants to the atmosphere in environmental policy, public investment in building cultural infrastructure in
cultural policy. There are of course a lot of examples of specific policy tools in a lot more policy subfields In
many countries or international organizations.
3. Choose country or international organization as a case and context for public policy development.
4. Choose a period for observation your chosen policy tool, e.g. 5 years. The longer the period is the more
probable you find some significant and widely discussed changes in the chosen policy. After steps 1-4 you
should have result like that: economic policy (policy subfield), central bank interest rates (policy tool), Turkey
(country), 2016-2022 (period).

PHASE TWO: DESCRIBING PUBLIC POLICY TOOL DEVELOPMENT

5. Find sources of data about the development of your policy tool in the chosen period e.g. special web portals
on this policy, social media groups interested in policy tool of your choice, general media coverage of your
policy, legal acts with definition and regulations concerning your policy.
6. Describe development of policy tool in the chosen period based on gathered data from the sources with
special focus on the changes in policy e.g. build timeline with the main events in your policy in the specified
period with description of this changes.

PHASE THREE: CHOOSING AN EXPLANATORY FRAMEWORK OF PUBLIC POLICY AND FORMULATING RESEARCH
QUESTIONS

7. Choose conceptual and explanatory framework of public policy e.g. one of the new institutionalisms, but
there are a lot more frameworks of this kind in the Cairney’s book (e.g. Multiple Streams Framework,
Narrative Policy Framework, Social Construction of Target Groups, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory etc.).
8. Learn about the concepts and hypotheses in the chosen public policy framework and describe them for
better understanding.
9. Formulate your main and supplementary research questions based on your chosen framework concerning
the development of your policy tool. General form of explanatory questions would be like that: 1) what was
the impact/influence of X on specified public policy development/change, 2) what was the
impact/influence of specified public policy development on Y. Type 1 question is about the causal
explanation of public policy stability and change (public policy is a dependent variable), e.g. opposition
winning the elections as a cause of policy change. Type 2 question is about causal explanation of variable
other than public policy, but with public policy as its cause (public policy is an independent variable), e.g.
cash benefits for poor families as a cause of family poverty.

1
CONTENTS OF THE PAPER AND TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS.

The paper should have:

1. a title page (title, name of student, date),


2. an interactive table of contents created by editor (when clicked, it takes you to the right place),
3. short abstract (includes a brief description of the aim and content of the paper),
4. an introduction (justification for the choice of public policy, explanatory framework, interest in research on
public policy in type 1 or type 2 research),
5. the following sections:
a) description of your public policy development based on sources,
b) description of the policy framework based on at least Cairney’s textbook,
c) main and supplementary research questions based on public policy development and specific
explanatory policy framework,
d) discussion and conclusion with your reflection about your results and the process of achieving them in
the context of the course.
6. and literature section with sources referenced in the paper on the separate page (references in the text
and literature should be in APA standard).

Minimum number of pages (excluding title and literature): 5 standard pages, i.e. a total of not less than 9000
characters with spaces.

ETHICAL REQUIREMENTS

The paper should be an independent work of the author, the result of your own reflection based on literature and
other sources. Quotations without quotations marks are plagiarism and disqualify the paper. You should write in
such a way that the reader knows where the author is carrying out his or her own analyses and reflections and
where he or she is referring to the views and arguments of other authors. This is why proper references to the
sources of data and literature are so important.

DEADLINE AND DELIVERY OF THE PAPER

Deadline is 2 June 2023, delivery by email: [email protected]

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