This week introduces the students to New Zealand’s constitutional context. The focus is to understand the structure of government as well as the role of the Treaty of Waitangi/Tiriti o Waitangi in New Zealand government and governance. Students are given an overview of these institutions and will consider some of the key debates about these enduring institutions.

One of the most important things for a policy analyst to advocate or remember is the ‘public’ part of ‘public policy’. Given our emphasis on analytics, analysis and data, it is easy to forget that politicians make policy and are not always swayed by evidence. This week, we consider New Zealand’s adapted Westminster system as an important venue for policy change.

This week introduces you to New Zealand’s bureaucracy – often referred to as the ‘machinery of government’. Building on previous weeks, we begin to see how the electoral system, structured by our constitution, leads to a government, which, in turn, relies on specialised agencies and individuals to both advise the elected officials on policy but also to implement the decisions that the Government makes. This two-way relationship of advising on and implementing policy is what makes the bureaucracy unique and so vital to New Zealand’s government system.

This week’s topic is local government. We will consider the structure of local government in New Zealand, and its relationship to central government. We will also examine how local governments are elected and what the guiding principles for local government in New Zealand are.

This week introduces students to the public finance/appropriations/budget process in New Zealand. Students will review the standard legislative process of budget-making and its connection to public policy. In particular, students will explore the concepts of gender budgeting and the well-being budget in New Zealand as significant changes with enormous potential for linking budget allocations with desired policy outcomes.

You will then progress to exploring how the expansionary and contractionary macroeconomic policies influence gross domestic product (GDP) and price levels. You will also learn more about the short-run and long-run effects of fiscal and monetary policies on the current account and exchange rate.

This module introduces students to sub-field of comparative public policy. Students will review the development and definitions of this approach over the past 50 years. In particular, students will explore the concept of lesson drawing and consider how policy makers might make use of it as an analytical tool.

In this module you will first look at one of our top trading partners, the United States, followed by another top trading partner, Australia. You will learn how to evaluate key free trade agreements, NAFTA and CER, and their economic implications for New Zealand.

In this module you will look at the methodological logic of making comparisons and then explore in more depth the methods used by comparative scholars. You will also engage in a series of short activities that inform how you might choose a preferred comparative method.

By the end of this module, you should be able to: – demonstrate a knowledge of key policy-relevant institutions, interests and ideas – understand how cross-national variation in these three “factors” influences policy outcomes – identify how to take such variation into account when engaging in lesson drawing.

This module focuses on the intersection of the global and the national in public policy. It is the final substantive content module for the course. We take a look at the way in which scholars understand the way international organisations (IOs) work. In the second part of the module, we shift the focus from the IOs to the nation state, and the way the latter has engaged with policy instruments created by the former.

In this module, no new content will be introduced. This week is reserved for you to review the course content (including the readings assigned for the course) and to work on your final assignment.

As you work on your final assignment, we will take a look at a case study on New Zealand’s Early Childhood Education (ECE) policy and how other countries have looked to us to draw lessons from a policy innovation. This is an important reminder that lesson-drawing is a two-way street and that through innovative and deliberate design, the policies we contribute to have the opportunity to have far wider impacts than we might initially conceive.