This assignment builds directly on Assignment 1, adding detail and depth to the dimensions of policy history, political actors, economic interests in play, and ideological factors affecting issue framing and policy choices.
You may well amplify the material already presented in the first assignment.? It is also possible, if not likely, that you will be able to introduce ?new? material based on your ongoing study of your focus policy.?
You are encouraged to use the following outline in composing your Word processed narrative:
1. Policy history
1. Policy content and intention (explicit or implicit) to address a recognized social problem;
2. Historical factors, including any policy predecessors, as well as any pertinent historical events or developments (for example, demographic shifts or trends).
2. Political Actors
1. Elected officials or other ?formal? system actors (such as executive branch bureaucrats), and what they have done;
2. Unofficial political actors, including PACs (?political action committees?), paid lobbyists, and advocacy groups/issue activists, and what they have done.
3. Economic Interests
1. Economic interests favorably affected by current policy (?winners?);
2. Economic interests unfavorably affected by current policy (?losers?).
4. Ideological Factors
1. Explicit ideas or values shaping policy (for example, work is a prerequisite of benefit eligibility);
2. Implicit (unstated) ideas or beliefs (for example, benefit recipients do not want to work and must be compelled to do so).
5. Policy impact on the lives of vulnerable populations, especially the target beneficiaries.? To what extent does the policy accomplish stated aims related to enhancing social welfare, and in what ways are lives improved?? (For example, to what extent has the Affordable Care Act succeeded in providing health care coverage to the millions of Americans without health insurance?).? On the other hand, are there notable limitations and/or unintended policy consequences that result in damage to vulnerable people, making their lives more difficult?? (For example, safety net programs requiring poor mothers to work may unintentionally result in stunted development of children placed in substandard day care.)
6. Policy impact on prevailing structures of?racial,?gender, and?class?injustice.? Are there identifiable ways in which the focus policy reduces specific inequities (the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, for example, explicitly aimed to reduce employment compensation discrimination against women)?? Alternatively, does current policy reinforce or worsen ? in effect, reproducing ? prevailing structures of injustice (in the way, for example, that much criminal justice policy promotes the mass incarceration of men of color, thereby reproducing structures of racial inequity and oppression)?
7. Policy impact on social capital.? As described in the Guide Notes, ?social capital? refers to relatively stable networks of trust, reciprocity and mutuality that contribute to the human experience of community and social solidarity.? While often not explicitly intended, the effects of policy on social capital are rarely neutral. The execution of policy will tend to either add to or detract from the store of social capital. (For example, housing policy stimulating development of affordable family units can be expected to enrich social capital, while an immigration policy of separating parents and children at the border can be expected to erode social capital.)
Recommended document length: 8-10 double-spaced pages, excluding title page and references (no abstract required). Papers should adhere to APA guidelines. There is no penalty for longer papers.
NOTE: Remember to reference the?
Instructor example of Assignment #2
?
?Download Instructor example of Assignment #2
(outline only)?document in the Resources section of the course for guidance when co
