Seminar in Public Policy Research

Course Number: 84-339

How do you argue for public policy in a polarized country? In principle, policy argument should run on evidence: research identifies what works, advocates make the case, decision-makers act. In practice, most policy argument fails to persuade anyone who doesn't already agree. Humans tend to form communities marked by homophily, in group vs out group, and discursive boundary-policing. Further, we tend to optimize our arguments for in-group cohesion rather than out-group persuasion. The result is arguments that only work in our group, and public fights in which the two sides argue past each other at different points of stasis. This course is designed to help you understand these dynamics and thus be better prepared to engage in productive dialogue and effect change. You will acquire a diagnostic toolkit: groupishness and affective polarization as the explanatory frame; claims, grounds, and warrants (Toulmin) alongside the classical appeals of ethos, pathos, and logos; stasis theory; formal argument mapping and a six-line analytical heuristic; and audience analysis. Then you will apply that toolkit to policy cases: immigration, wealth inequality, AI, and masking/identity concealment. We'll conduct using warrant autopsies, identify argument stases (or "sticking" points), and practice audience analysis. The final four weeks are practical application: a tabletop exercise (TTX) in which you must move stakeholders who don't share your premises, and a policy brief that you defend live before a critical audience. The goal is not that you abandon your personal commitments, or that you conclude all policy positions are equally good. It is that you can temporarily put down your group's cohesion work, see an argument space with transpartisan eyes, and then craft research-grounded arguments that have a real chance of moving people outside your group.

Academic Year: 2026-2027
Semester(s): Fall
Units: 12
Location(s): Washington, DC