This course introduces class participants to the political significance and societal consequences of challenges facing U.S. and international policymakers. It is designed to help participants develop skills to analyze policy proposals and advocate for their preferred options for issues on the public policy agenda ahead. The class assumes basic knowledge about governing institutions and democratic processes, while recommending supplemental materials for further study to complement reading links provided. The course focuses on future policy challenges, while examining the broad historical context in which policies are adopted and implemented. As the course evaluates how issues are advanced by private sector interests, non-governmental organizations, and government policymakers, it examines how groups become effective policy advocates. Particular attention is paid to how winning coalitions are formed and how issue framing shapes the outcome of policy campaigns. The goal is neither to produce partisan talking points, nor to favor one governance philosophy over others. Rather it is to clarify the public policy challenges ahead and to enhance participants’ understanding of how policy options are adopted in the real world arena of contemporary politics. Coming soon, you will be able to join Signature Track, a system that verifies your identity when you take an exam. This option will allow you to earn a Verified Certificate, which provides formal recognition of your achievements in the course and includes the University of Virginia logo. Before then, you can complete a “test run” of the exam. You can then re-take the exam after the Verified Certificate becomes available. For information regarding Verified Certificates, see https://courserahelp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201212399-Verified-Certificates"
Gerry Warburg : Reflection on Future Policy Issues
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來自 University of Virginia 的課程
21 世纪的公共政策挑战
469 個評分
從本節課中
Wrapping Up - Positive Change and Closing
Professor Warburg reviews key course themes, analytical skills and the importance of civic engagement with the public policy agenda ahead.
與講師見面
- Professor Gerry WarburgProfessor of Public Policy, Assistant Dean for External Affairs
Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy
Will welcome once more to the Frank Batten School at University of Virginia.
Today is going to bring closure to a semester-long voyage through the public
policy challenges ahead.
We've had two goals on this journey.
First, to map the territory ahead.
Second, to help equip you with the key tools to shape public policy.
Now remember, your first cut at the 2030 agenda was dominated by domestic issues.
About 90 days ago you said the agenda would be
dominated by five primarily domestic issues.
These included, budget deficits, immigration, gun control, economic growth,
along with energy and climate policy.
We discussed then the National Intelligence Council's key conclusions.
These included an accelerating rise of Asian economies, especially China and
India, the rapid pace of urbanization, the growth of the global middle class and
the role of new so-called disruptive technologies and
what role they will play in challenging existing public policy norms.
Now we asked you last week to reassess this agenda.
We did some top hat polling, and your answers after some 48 class meetings
were decidedly more transnational in outlook.
Your recent responses for example, place much more emphasis on managing US China
relations, a nuclear nonproliferation from Iran and
North Korea as well as global energy and climate change policy.
Now a key theme throughout the semester in this course has been stressed overall, and
that is the change that technologies will bring will have
a profound impact on the menu of public policy options you'll have.
So in this sense, Heraclitus was right.
The ancient Greek sage warned us that quote, the only constant is change.
Your future promises accelerating change.
Hyper change, Al Gore calls it.
Change on steroids, Warbird calls it.
Your generation will have to redefine citizen rights to privacy,
under the onslaught of invasive new technologies.
Worldwide, you'll be pressed by technology, you'll be redefining medical
ethics from the beginning and the end of life decisions.
You'll address clean water challenges, energy, and climate change.
And you'll start curbing some of the free riders who
extrude externalities without paying the real cost.
Here in the United States you'll like re-legislate war powers and
issues we discussed a lot in this room.
You'll reset limits on presidential power in an age of drones and cyber war.
You'll tackle debt and investment policy, and
in this sense I'm heartened, you'll probably achieve the grand bargain, and
it's clear there's a consensus approach there when we've got the political will.
You'll also likely reform elections and campaign finance.
You'll redefine how federalism operates, recognizing the distinction
between local and global approaches is blurred in an era when so
many challenges are transnational in scope.
Now another major theme of this course has been that heightened suspicion of
federal power creates alternative policy making options.
Thus, it seems clear that millennials here in America will likely expand
the experimentation we've seen among our 50 states on the new frontiers of
social policy, whether it's law in Georgia that essentially permits guns everywhere,
to California's cap and trade.
Whether it's Massachusett's Romneycare, or Colorado's redefinition of
Rocky Mountain High with their new tax windfall from cannabis commerce.
So your policy-making future will force a remarkable transformation of
both the international environment, and I personally believe,
of our national politics.
The recent Pew Center poll, offers some really fascinating data.
Among millennials, amongst your cohort, respect for
major social institutions, surprise, has gone markedly down,
whether you're talking about Congress or Wall Street, down to historic lows.
Now, there's a great danger.
This kind of data might invite slacktivism, a kind of why
bother checking out of public affairs that can disenfranchise an entire generation.
This might abdicate power,
leave it leave the policy making field to professional politicians and
entrenched incumbent party bosses who have narrow self interested agendas.
Well I like to repeat the old phrase that they're lies, damn lies and statistics.
Therefore, let me give you some more optimistic stats to
balance these bleak numbers.
Let's start with the fact that 70% of millennials, surveys confirm,
see public service as noble.
And think about AmeriCorps, 600,000 people applied last year for
less than 60,000 jobs.
Similar numbers, 60,000 applicants for just over 7,000 AmeriCorps jobs.
Now you know here at UVA, where so many of you are already engaged in
community service that we send the largest corp in the country to the Peace Corps.
And we see similar activism overseas from millennials.
Whether it's the courage of young activists we heard about in
this room from the Arab Spring,
where the systematic efforts of democracy activists from Caracas to Hong Kong.
And I would submit that these brave young people are not exactly slackers.
Now when I think about the public policy challenges ahead and
how big they are, I keep coming back to the same clumsy metaphor.
I think of the New York city firemen and the women on 9/11.
I think of last year's Boston Marathon volunteers.
They were faced with a perilous challenge, a threat to their fellow citizens, and
what do they do?
They ran towards the danger.
It's a bit dramatic, but if you'll permit me, the image is out.
We baby mooers, boomers are exhorting you millennials to run towards the challenges.
Get yourself to the state capital.
Get yourself to Washington.
Get yourself to the UN, or get yourself to local town council.
Use these tools wisely, please.
Now, the Batten School does not train armchair analysts.
And speaking very personally, I have zero interest in standing before you and
training a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacks.
We have enough of those sideline hecklers.
Those smug voices on the partisan daytime television show that feature infotainment,
and what I call tragiporn, but no real news.
