Spring 2027

Policy-making Process

Explores the political, social, and economic contexts shaping policy making processes with a primary focus on the US and international comparisons.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 4

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.44 GPA, 68.3% A/AB (n=41 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.86 GPA, 95.5% A/AB (n=22 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.65 GPA, 73.5% A/AB (n=34 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify important contextual aspects of policy making processes, of dominant theories, models and conceptual frameworks of policy processes, and of key issues and topics in policy making.

  • Critically analyze theories and evidence presented in readings and describe debates, past and present, surrounding public policy making processes.

  • Read and comprehend academic research, data, and writing as well as journalistic writings on relevant issues of public policy processes and politics.

  • Communicate summaries and analyses of topics, issues and key readings in class discussions, presentations, and writing assignments. Use clear written language and draw on theories, concepts, and evidence to support their arguments and ideas.

  • Maintain fidelity to objective social science-based research methods.

  • Prepare a high-quality presentation and communicate effectively as a speaker.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2 UW Guide 3

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Graduate/professional standing

  • Graduate/professional standing
POLISCI/PUBAFFR/URBRPL 874

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Graduate/professional standing

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.44 GPA, 68.3% A/AB (n=41 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.86 GPA, 95.5% A/AB (n=22 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.65 GPA, 73.5% A/AB (n=34 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Agenda setting, implementation, and the relationships between policymaking and democracy.
  • Contemporary and emerging issues and dilemmas of the politics of policy making.
  • Dominant theories and models of policymaking process and policy change, including the policy cycle.

Skills

  • Understanding dominant theories and models of policymaking processes and policy change, including the policy cycle model.
  • Analyzing key policy-making topics such as agenda setting, implementation, and the relationship between policymaking and democracy.
  • Critically analyzing theories and evidence in readings to describe debates surrounding public policy making processes.
  • Using clear written language and drawing on theories, concepts, and evidence to support arguments and ideas.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
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Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews

No records available.

Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "fff5fc0492c565fc961ffd4100abb0fb768ef2dc0a8624149282be21a60a1a7b",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}