Frank Fischer (Humboldt University, Berlin)

Frank Fischer is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Politics and Global Affairs at Rutgers University in the USA. Currently, he is a research scholar at the Albrecht Daniel Thayer-Institute at Humboldt University in Berlin. He is an honorary co-editor of Critical Policy Studies journal and editor of the Handbook of Public Policy Series editor for Edward Elgar. In addition to widely lecturing around the world on environmental politics and policy analysis, he has published 17 books and numerous essays. These include Citizens, Experts and the Environment (Duke 2000), Reframing Public Policy:  Discursive Politics and Deliberative Practices (Oxford 2003), Handbook of Public Policy Analysis:  Theory, Politics and Methods, co-edited with Mara Sidney and Gerald Miller (Taylor and Francis  2006), Democracy and Expertise: Reorienting Policy Inquiry (Oxford 2009), The Argumentative   Turn Revisited: Public Policy as Communicative Practice, co-edited with Herbert Gottweis (Duke 2012), the Handbook of Critical Policy Studies, co-edited with Douglas Torgerson, Anna Durnova and Michael Orsini ( Elgar 2015), Climate Crisis and the Democratic Prospect (Oxford 2017) and Truth and Post-Truth in Public Policy (2021). In addition to research in the United States and Germany, he has conducted field research in India,  Nepal and Thailand on citizen participation and local ecological knowledge. He has also received numerous awards, including the Harold Lasswell and Aaron Wildavsky Awards for contributions to the field.

Course: Understanding the Public Policy Process: Illustrations from Climate and Environmental Policies

This course has two primary interrelated goals. It examines the dynamics of the public policy process while at the same time exploring the ways that climate and environmental policies move through the process. On the one hand, the policy process is presented with environmental illustrations; on the other, the process is employed to better grasp the difficult environmental challenges facing governments around the world.  Beginning with the theory of the policy process, emphasis is placed on political, conceptual, and methodological issues, including the interplay among competing criteria, in particular efficiency, equity, and legitimacy. The discussion then turns to an investigation of specific environmental issues in each phase of the policymaking process. The politics of agenda setting (emphasizing interest group competition, parties, movements and the media in adopting climate policies) is presented. This is followed by policy formulation (focused on environmental policy advice, cost-benefit analysis and epistemic policy communities). Policy adoption (as played out through power struggles between fossil fuel industries, green parties and environmental movements) is then taken up. The role of implementation follows (concerned with bureaucratic politics, and the delivery of environmental programs).  And finally, the course turns to policy evaluation and learning (examining the politics of environmental risk assessment).  Along the way, the ability of the multiple streams model, the advocacy coalition framework, and the discourse-deliberative approach to explain environmental policy are examined. Throughout, the course pays special attention to the kinds of knowledge and modes of inquiry appropriate to each phase of environmental policymaking.