Students are offered several intensive one-week seminars, each on a single theme. Each seminar presents students with a particular type of complexity in the policymaking process. Whereas each of the Policy Case Studies examines one specific policy with many associated complexities, the Complexity Seminars are designed to examine one particular type of complexity as it applies to many different policy examples. In this way, students see each complexity as a phenomenon with considerable generality.
Complexity Seminars:
AI and Public Policy
Instructor: Nick King and Derek Ruths
How do you address policy problems with data?
How do you address policy problems with data?
Instructor: Ricardo Chejfec/Béatrice Libchaber
The Policy Process
Instructor: Neil Bouwer
Rhetoric and Communication of Public Policy
Through this course, participants will gain an understanding of the many considerations and factors that shape a political position, frame and narrative, including self-interests, current events and ideology. We will explore how a political communications campaign is strategically deployed and how it must adapt to the current context, shifting public opinion and competing campaigns. We will explore public policy debate and the stress-test public policy must endure to be successful.
Instructor: Cheryl Anne Oates
Budgeting and Fiscal Policy
Exploration of key variables in a budget, budget rules, the internal and external dynamics of budgeting, and the impact of debt burdens on countries.
Instructor: Louis Levesque
Race, Inequality and Public Policy
This seminar examines the dynamics and persistence of racial inequality in Canada and other advanced industrialized societies. Students will explore the ways that public policy has worked to aggravate and/or ameliorate these circumstances and analyze the impact of racial inequality on democratic norms and institutions.
Instructor: Jonathan Thompson
Achieving Policy Transparency
Transparency is generally considered a necessary condition of good democratic power, effective policies and accountability and an engaged citizenry. Democracy is now under strain around the world. Some are questioning whether we are entering a post-truth environment. This seminar examines policy transparency from a 360 degree public policy perspective. We will examine the assumptions and implications of transparency theory. Theory will collide with complexity and the public interest when we look at a full array of policy transparency challenges related to public finance, central banks, trade, income inequality, climate change and access to information laws. We will debate the benefits, costs, and obstacles on the design and implementation of policy transparency. We will look to the future, where the next generation of public policy leaders will grapple with the importance and challenges of policy transparency on big issues like income inequality and climate change in a more integrated global and digital environment.
Instructor: Kevin Page
Public Choice: Do Governments Always Act in the Public Interest?
Economics often assumes that voters, elected officials and the government are motivated by the public interest. But is this right? How does the public policy calculus change if we assume that voters, legislators and government officials are also motivated by self interest? Ken Boessenkool brings 25 years of practice in politics and government to the theory of public choice. We will not only learn the theory, but learn how the theory translates, or doesn’t, into real life.
Instructor: Ken Boessenkool
Food Systems Transformation in Global Perspective
Examines food-systems transformation policies and programs at national and sub-national levels around the world. The course will provide concrete examples from both the Global North and South as well as exceptional case studies, such as China. Students will have the opportunity to explore other examples of their choosing, and an “open space” session will showcase their work and creativity. As per the findings of the Eat-Lancet Commission (2019) “food is the single strongest lever to optimize human health and environmental sustainability on Earth”.
The course has the general objective to equip students to articulate the policy issues within the food-system: Specifically, students will acquire systems thinking, coherent policymaking instincts, and analytical skills to advance sustainable food systems. Students will be able to describe and communicate increased knowledge and demonstrate skills to act as “change agents” across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors;
The course will be global in scope, but examples will draw heavily from the Canadian context. The weight given to various countries will be determined in part by where students anticipate working after graduation as well as their interests.
Instructor: Gisèle Yasmeen
Strategies for Economic Growth
Strategies for Economic Growth
Instructor: Miguel Ángel Santos
