Postgraduate Diploma in Policy Studies

Four modules from the following

Public policy and management: perspectives and issues

You will be introduced to the main principles and techniques of public policy and management. The course examines the scope and functions of government in a critical and comparative way, ideal types of management and policy transfer, and introduces policy evaluation.

Unit 1: The State, Public Policy and Management
Unit 2: Understanding the State
Unit 3: Ideal Types
Unit 4: Policy Analysis and Evaluation
Unit 5: Policy and Management Dilemmas I
Unit 6: Policy and Management Dilemmas 2
Unit 7: Policy Transfer
Unit 8: The Future of the State?

Public policy and strategy

You will cover the policy process, from problem definition and measurement, option appraisal and assessment, to implementation and evaluation, using case studies from a variety of different settings. While it follows the ‘rational’ model, it also assesses critically how and where such a model does and does not apply, and covers approaches to ‘strategic’ management techniques in the public sector.

Unit 1: The Policy Analysis Model and Alternatives
Unit 2: Stakeholders, Data Collection and Analysis
Unit 3: Implementation: Policy Instruments and Service Provision
Unit 4: Allocating Resources and Assigning Responsibilities
Unit 5: Performance Management and Monitoring
Unit 6: Policy Evaluation
Unit 7: Strategic Planning and Policy
Unit 8: Policy Networks and Policy Transfer: Policy in a Globalised World

The International Monetary Fund and economic policy

Few countries have complete autonomy in macroeconomic policy. For many, policy is conducted in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or supervised by the IMF. The course examines the changing roles of the IMF, the nature of economic policies it encourages countries to pursue, and some of the effects these policies have on the economic environment of business, on the financial sector, and on social conditions. The course gives a simple introduction to the basic IMF economic policy framework, ‘financial programming’. Using different types of countries, including transition economies and developing countries as case studies, it enables students to study issues such as the role of capital controls and the problems of highly indebted countries.

Unit 1: Macroeconomic Stabilisation and the Role of the International Monetary Fund
Unit 2: The IMF’s Approach to Stabilisation
Unit 3: Alternative Approaches to Stabilisation
Unit 4: Stabilisation and the Financial Sector
Unit 5: Stabilisation Policy and the Financial Sector: Institutional Responses to Recent Crises
Unit 6: Stabilisation and the Financial Sector: Some Challenges and Controversies
Unit 7: Stabilisation and Low-income Countries
Unit 8: Challenges for Low-income Countries

Decentralisation and local governance

You will study the fiscal and policy relationships between local and sub-national government. The course explores democracy and public participation in the policy process, local poverty reduction and local economic development.

Unit 1: Decentralisation: What and Why?
Unit 2: Fiscal Decentralisation
Unit 3: Cases in Fiscal Decentralisation
Unit 4: Administrative Decentralisation
Unit 5: Decentralisation and Participation
Unit 6: Assessing Decentralisation in Practice
Unit 7: Local Economic Development
Unit 8: Decentralisation and Poverty

Privatisation and public-private partnerships

This course looks at a variety of innovations for producing public services. These range from privatisation to partnerships with private and voluntary organisations. The course will enable you to undertake the analyse necessary to make the best choice of method, and to begin the process of implementation.

Unit 1: Introduction to Privatisation in the OECD Countries
Unit 2: Scale and Methods of Privatisation in Africa, Latin America and Asia
Unit 3: Impact of Privatisation
Unit 4: Case Studies in Privatisation
Unit 5: Outsourcing, Contracting and Competition
Unit 6: Case Studies in Procurement
Unit 7: Public-Private Partnerships
Unit 8: Public-Private Partnerships: Cases and Conclusions

Public Policy & Management: Development Assistance

The purpose of this module can summarised by the questions that students will be asked to think about and analyse in their study of this topic.

• Has aid increased the rate of economic growth in the aid recipient countries?
• Does aid change government policies?
• Does aid have a detrimental effect on governments’ accountibility to their citizens?
• Do donor conditions have an effect on the quality of governance in recipient countries?
• Does the aid industry distort the labour market in recipient countries and adversely affect government capacity?
• Do donors need recipient governments more that governments need donors?
• Does food aid adversely affect food production?
• Does aid promote corruption?

Unit 1: A Brief History of Development Assistance
Unit 2: Development Assistance and Economic Development
Unit 3: Humanitarian Assistance
Unit 4: Making Poverty History
Unit 5: The Aid Agencies
Unit 6: Funding and Resource Allocation
Unit 7: Implementation: Aid Modalities, Conditionality and Aid Effectiveness
Unit 8: Reflections on Development Assistance