PubPol 750.011 Topics: History and Public Policy

History provides a powerful set of tools for policy analysts, practitioners, and advocates. This course teaches students how to use history to:  better understand U.S. policy processes; deepen policy analysis; advocate for policy interventions; and weigh alternative solutions to longstanding problems. Rather than surveying the past, this course begins from current U.S. policy problems for example, the persistence of racial inequality in social welfare provision, mass detentions and deportations of immigrants, and new challenges to U.S. global authority amid rising isolationism at home and authoritarianism abroad. Emphasizing the way intersections of race, gender, and labor have structured U.S. policy systems and political power, our readings and discussions traverse a variety of historical subfields, including policy and political history, labor and social history, and diplomatic and legal history. Students will also have the opportunity to conduct their own historicized policy analysis or advocacy project. No previous experience in history is required.

Faculty Expert

Joy Rohde

Associate Professor of Public Policy

Rohde is historian who specializes in the relationship between policy knowledge, technology, and American democracy. At Michigan, she is also affiliated with the Department of History, the Science, Technology, and Society Program, and the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program.