2023-2024 / SPOL0970-1

Policy design and evaluation

Duration

20h Th

Number of credits

 Extra courses intended for exchange students (Erasmus, ...) (Faculty of Law, Political Science and Criminology)5 crédits 

Lecturer

Céline Parotte

Language(s) of instruction

English language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the second semester

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

What makes a public policy fail or succeed? While some see policy failure as fundamentally a problem of policy design, one of the first difficulties is actually putting a problem on the public agenda. This is particularly the case with regard to the rehabilitation or reallocation of places such as polluted sites or abandoned industrial sites. They are subject to various attempts at public intervention, ranging from "non-decision", "laissez-faire" to maintaining a "status quo" situation to rehabilitating wastelands.

The objective of this course is to immerse students to the challenges of an ex-ante comparative evaluation in a prospective and fictional way. 

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

Based on illustrative cases of places to be rehabilitated and key scientific articles, the student analyses the current situation and the potential problem, who has (un)occupied the place, why this potential problem is receiving more or less attention from policy-makers. The students also analyze what happens without political intervention, how public intervention would make a difference, under what conditions and why. The students learn to characterize a particular situation, to articulate potential reasons for (in)action, to develop hypotheses for public action, and to specify evaluation criteria and expected effects.

 

 

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

pas de co requis/

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

The course will be a reading seminar. Each week, a student presents the key elements of the theoretical reading of the week applied to a case study of his/her choice. The theoretical reading is then applied to an illustrative case study presented by the professor, and discussed in groups. Emerging theoretical and analytical issues are used as a basis for reflection on the ex-ante evaluation approach.

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Face-to-face course


Additional information:

Active participation in the course is expected. Students must be punctual and arrive five minutes before the start of the course. Attendance is compulsory. Any absence must be justified by a medical certificate within 48 hours. Failure to give an oral presentation in session 6 will automatically result in a second session.

Recommended or required readings

The course slides are sent via Ecampus.

The list of scientific articles to be read before each course session is available via Ecampus.

Written work / report

Continuous assessment


Additional information:

Continuous and final written work :



 - 50% participation in the course (including an oral presentation of its evaluation grid applied to its industrial site in session 6).

Active participation in the course is expected. Students must be punctual and arrive five minutes before the start of the course. Attendance is compulsory. Any absence must be justified by a medical certificate within 48 hours. Failure to give an oral presentation in session 6 will automatically result in a second session.


- 50% written work on the challenges of the ex-ante evaluation process applied to a chosen industrial site.

In pdf format, the written work must include at least :
- a cover page (including the student's first and last name and the name of the industrial site studied); a table of contents; an introduction (max. 0.5 page),
- A page introducing and explaining the choice of industrial site, presenting it briefly and explaining why it is relevant to the exercise.
- an analytical part structured according to the five reading sessions (sessions 5 and 6 have been grouped together - max. 6 pages) which took place throughout the year. For each session, an explicit title must be proposed; the evaluation questions must be explicitly asked; references to scientific texts must be systematic (with page number).
- a conclusion (max. 0.5 page), a bibliographical section, arranged in alphabetical order, harmonised and reproduced according to the scientific standards presented during the course.

 

Objectives of the assessment: To assess the students' ability to (1) take an analytical look at an abandoned industrial site by (2) mobilising in depth and (3) quoting adequately the scientific authors seen in the course, (4) asking relevant questions on the basis of these readings to assess the chosen site and (5) putting all these reflections into writing.

Assessment criteria:

  • Style of final written work (ability to write in a scientific style, clearly and without spelling mistakes), bibliography (authors actually used in the writing and at the end of the text in a dedicated section)
  • Coherence and clarity of the written work
  • References to authors and well understood and well developed concepts, formalized links between authors concept's in the written work (ability to make the link with authors seen in the course to support a statement or an argument + ability to refer to the exact terminology used by the author(s)).
  • Questions from the readings in the written work (ability to ask new questions without providing an answer, RP by RP in the following way: what do the authors of the day invite us to pay particular attention to? What are the specific questions the authors could asked on my case study)
  • Compliance with format guidelines (a.o. no work will be accepted after the deadline).

Work placement(s)

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

Contacts

The team is composed of :

- Céline Parotte celine.parotte@uliege.be

- Hélène Dodion helene.dodion@uliege.be

Association of one or more MOOCs