Comparative Public Policy

Choose a policy area or problem or issue found in advanced industrial societies. Examples of possible topics might include the provision of adequate child care for working mothers, the perverse incentives of the tax system, or the design of the health care system.
Compare the policies to address this problem or issue in two or more countries.
Offer a broader theoretical explanation for the cross-national differences and generate an argument about the significance of your comparative analysis for some larger theme of the class.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ORGANIZING THE PAPER

I. Introduction:
First, you identify the CENTRAL QUESTION of the paper. Try to be very clear about what you want to explain. Usually, the central question includes both a counterintuitive empirical problem and a larger theoretical or thematic question to which it relates.
Next, in the introduction, you identify your ARGUMENT that explains both the empirical puzzle and gives insight into the larger theoretical question.

II. Literature Review
In this section you present a theoretical debate, setting forth how scholars have thought about this problem. Try to come up with at least three different views.
Critique each author and set forth what one should expect to find in the case if each author were right.

III. Case
Here you should present the empirical information about your case. But organize this information in a way that tests each of your contending theories. Pulling this off is a real art form. You don’t want to give the reader a long, boring narration (everything I ever wanted to know about the Greens but was afraid to ask). But you also don’t want the story to be too jumpy.

IV. Conclusion
Here you restate the question, argument, and key case details in case we missed them the first time around. Always assume that the reader has a low IQ (which, of course, isn’t the case when your professor reads the paper.)

Remember to footnote everything that you read in a book, even if it is not a direct quote.
The paper should be based on at least 8 to 10 sources.
The paper should be about 1/2 rhetorical and 1/2 analysis, addressing why the policy in these countries evolve in two different ways and the cultural logic behind that evolution. Why do these countries have different philosophies? What role does the economic system play?