How should science and technology be used to solve social and policy problems? What values and assumptions underlie our current understandings of science and...
This class provides a foundational understanding of comparative law and selected foreign legal systems. The first part of the course is devoted to understanding the different families of...
This course, structured as a seminar and writing workshop, intensively develops students’ persuasive writing and critical reading skills through abundant practice and...
This course offers senior public policy students an opportunity to conduct a policy analysis project in an area of their interest. Each student will identify a policy outcome of personal interest, and analyze strategies to advance that...
Is Congress too partisan? Can Congress fulfill its legislative and oversight functions? Do the executive and judicial branches effectively control public policy...
Public policy embodies an assortment of value systems. While individual value systems express coherent, consistent approaches, public policy expresses an amalgam of values, with corresponding decrease in...
Detroit was the nation's most important city in the Twentieth Century because of the the auto industry, the emergence of the blue collar middle class and development of the New Deal. Now it is the most negatively stereotyped city in the...
This course is intended to serve as an introduction to the major issues of health and health care in the United States — what they are, what determines them, and how they can be altered. In so doing, the course surveys the field of public...
The main idea that we want to get across is implicit in the title: Systematic thinking - largely from the social sciences, but with the application of scientific methods and knowledge more generally - can make a significant difference in the way...
The class deals with the political, practical and substantive facets of policy making. We do this by analyzing the passage - and sometimes failure - of signature pieces of federal legislation that imposed massive change on the...
This course is designed to familiarize students with the Michigan political system and learn about current policy issues at play both statewide and in local...
Climate change often feels like a problem that our brains have been hardwired to ignore. Climate change is abstract and complex, making it hard for non-scientists (including policy-makers) to...
This course examines the nature, extent and causes of poverty and inequality in the US relying on a multidisciplinary literature from sociology, political science, economics, and...
