Policy Solutions

• Inducements
• Rules
• Facts
• Rights
• Powers

 

Directions:

Focusing on the policy issue you have chosen to analyze, consider how policymakers planned to enforce the policy change and what the response of key stakeholders has been. Write a brief essay (no more than one page) responding to the following questions:

 

5. Enforcement: (Answer only two of questions 1 to 5. Choose those questions that best apply to your policy.)
   1. What inducements were included to enforce the policy? Were the inducements largely positive or negative, and have they had the anticipated effects of creating good will or ill will? Why or why not?
   2. What rules were established to enforce your policy? How did those rules balance the tradeoff between precision and flexibility?
   3. How did the governing agency attempt to persuade stakeholders to conform to the policy? In your opinion were these efforts primarily informative or manipulative?
   4. What rights were granted by this policy and to what group? Are these best classified as procedural or substantive rights?
   5. How did this policy shift powers between different levels of government? How was this restructuring of authority to be accomplished? Was the decision-making power to become more or less centralized?

 

1. Unintended consequences: How have stakeholders responded to the policy in ways that were unintended by policymakers? As a result, what issues have arisen in enforcing the policy? Have policy makers revisited the policy to ‘close the loopholes’?

 

 

Assignment:

I will not review and edit first drafts of this assignment – I leave that to you. You are encouraged, however, to ask other members of the class to read and edit your first draft.  Submit your response via blackboard as a Word 2007 or 2010 file.  Your response should be in paragraph form, standard heading, complete but succinct, no more than one page total.  Do not include the numbers of the questions you are answering – your topic sentences should tell me.

 

Grading rubric

 

Policy enforcement  

 

	Points
Content (50 pts)
Brief recap of policy topic	5
Describes two enforcement mechanisms (15 pts each) Inducements: positive or negative? anticipated effects? Rules: precise or flexible? tradeoff? Facts: informative or manipulative? Rights: granted to whom? substantive or procedural? Shift of powers: from/to what levels of government? more or less centralized?	30
Unintended consequences: as economic theory would predict? response of policy makers?	15
Style (50 pts)
Heading/no more than one-page	5
Topic sentences	10
Paragraphing	5
Grammar & sentence structure	10
Neutral voice	5
Citations & references	10
Proof-reading (spelling, punctuation, etc.)	5
Total	100