Program Overview:
A public policy is a commitment to a course of action by an entity with the authority to impose it within one or more jurisdictions. Policy faculty expertise includes why Congress addresses some policy issues but not others (Lorenz), uncertainty in environmental policy making (Michaels), and public policy and state politics (Smith).
The department offers three complementary, self-contained graduate policy courses, that can be taken in any order and do not have prerequisites. Each is available to graduate students within and outside the department. Students from agricultural economics, education, plant health, psychology, and sociology have taken public policy courses alongside political science students. Students can take one, two or all three of the courses. In each course, students are able to write their major paper in a policy area of their choice. Political Science 831, the Core Seminar in Public Policy, considers how the policy process in the United States has been studied. It is intended to provide graduate students with a conceptual understanding of the policy process to enable them to undertake theory-based, policy-relevant research and teaching. Political Science 836, Public Policy Analysis, considers policy analysis as a systematic process of prescriptive activities used to aid decision making. The course highlights quick, yet theoretically defensible, methods useful for smaller-scale analyses or for taking a preliminary cut at larger-scale analyses. Political Science 931, Seminar in Public Policy, provides students with the opportunity to develop and execute a policy-oriented research project. It also enables them to participate in the evolving debate over whether a particular policy sector constitutes a distinct field of inquiry or is a testbed for theory and practice of the broad field of public policy.
Students who choose to study policy may benefit from engaging with the Nebraska Public Policy Center. Depending on issue area, public policy students might also be interested in cross-departmental graduate specializations in Environmental Studies or Water Resources.
Graduates who studied policy as part of their Political Science MA program have gone on to work in a range of positions across the country including as a county victim/witness coordinator, a state economist, and as a U.S. Department of State senior communications strategist. Graduates who studied policy as part of their doctoral program have gone on to work in a range of positions across the country including as a foundation senior executive, private sector social scientist, and university professor.
Core Faculty:
Geoff Lorenz, Assistant Professor
Sarah Michaels, Professor
Kevin Smith, Professor