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If you wish to apply to join any of the CeFiMS programmes by distance learning, please first complete this online form and submit. [New window]

Centre for Financial & Management Studies (CeFiMS) - University of London

Individual Professional Courses – IPC    

Public Policy and Management: Perspectives & Issues [PPM101]

Introduction

We live in an era of frequent and sometimes radical change in what governments do and how they are organised to do it. Sometimes the changes are generated within countries as responses to social, political and economic developments and sometimes they originate outside the country. The purpose of this course is to provide an analytical framework for understanding public policy and management in a variety of historical and comparative contexts. It will give you the means to make your own judgements about appropriate ways to make public policy and organise and deliver public services.

Aims & Objectives

By the end of this course you will be able to:

  • define for yourself what are the main differences between managing in the public and the private sectors

  • identify the origins in the social political and economic context of the ideal types of public management that have been and are being promoted

  • classify states and regime types and understand the impact of different types of state on management and policy processes

  • analyse the policy making process in order to be able to participate in it

  • design an outline policy evaluation

  • evaluate alternative governance mechanisms for public services and make a choice of appropriate organisational forms

  • understand how policy transfer happens

  • handle and apply with confidence the vocabulary of public policy and management today.

Resources

Students receive a looseleaf binder containing eight ‘course units’; these texts are carefully structured to provide the main teaching and are equivalent to traditional course lectures, defining and exploring the main concepts and issues, locating these within current debate and introducing and linking the further assigned readings. Two assignments (to be marked by your CeFiMS tutors), and a specimen examination paper are also included within the student pack, along with the following:

Reader:

Because no single textbook could be found that covered all the issues raised in this course, students will be provided with three volumes of readings. These draw upon selected articles and extracts from books developing and exploring the nature of the state and governance, state-society relations, what states should (and should not) do, why, and how. There are case studies of policy making, evaluation, governance changes and structural and management reforms in a variety of contexts. The Online Study Centre also has supplementary readings and useful links to academic and other resources for this course.

Course Timetable:

This shows the linkage between the various components of the course and indicates the schedule for reading the texts, submitting assignments, etc.

Course Content

  • Unit 1 The State, Public Policy and Management

      • What is public management?

      • What is the public sector?

      • What is public policy?

      • Summary: the importance of context in managing

  • Unit 2 Understanding the State

      • Why public action? Market failure as an explanation?

      • Size and functions

      • Economic development and the state

      • States and welfare

      • The state and politics

      • Implications of regime type for public policy and management

  • Unit 3 Ideal Types

      • Introduction

      • The classical Chinese civil service

      • Max Weber and bureaucracy

      • Progressive’ Public Administration: taking the politics out of management

      • The ‘New deal’

      • Post-Bureaucracy: reinventing government

      • New Public Management

  • Unit 4 Policy Analysis and Evaluation

      • Introduction

      • The policy process: ‘Rational Model’ and its opponents

      • Institutions, élites and policy networks

      • Policy in practice: case study on China’s economic reforms

      • Policy evaluation

      • Summary and review

  • Unit 5 Policy and Management Dilemmas I

      • Markets, hierarchies, clans or networks?

      • Public choice or public spirit?

      • Summary and review

  • Unit 6 Policy and Management Dilemmas 2

      • Managing discretion: centralisation and decentralisation

      • Managing reforms: big bangs, cultural change and reorganisation

      • Unit review questions

  • Unit 7 Policy Transfer

      • A theory of policy transfer: institutional form

      • Case study 1 – the USA occupation of Japan: The New Deal as policy transfer

      • Case Study 2 – ‘Structural Adjustment and New Public Management’

  • Unit 8 The Future of the State?

      • The end of the state?

      • Choices

      • Organisational structures: separating policy from service delivery

      • End of course review questions

    Tuition & Assessment

    There are two Assignments which will be marked by your tutor. Assignments are set after Units 4 and 8, that is, in weeks 4 and 8 of the study calendar.

    To assist with revision and preparation for the final examination, review questions and a specimen examination paper are contained in the course material. The assignments count for 30% of the final mark and the examination 70%. Assignments are submitted and feedback given online. In addition, queries and problems can be answered through the Online Study Centre.

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