This module aims to provide you with a high-level understanding of the politics behind public policymaking. Why do governments do the things they do? To which groups in society are governments responsive? How constrained are policymakers by history and institutional context?

We will introduce the main analytical tools that are used to understand continuity, change and cross-national variation in public policy. In particular, we will explore the explanatory leverage that can be provided by the comparative method. In this way, we lay the foundations of empirically substantiated and critical evaluation of the actions of governments.