Assimilation of Public Policy Concepts Through Role-Play: Distinguishing Rational Design and Political Negotiation

Abstract

One important objective of introductory courses in public administration is to sensitize students to the difference between two concepts: substantive rationality and political rationality. Both types of rationality play an important role in policy processes. Yet, although the difference is straightforward in theory, and is addressed and well-illustrated in most standard textbooks on public administration, students seem to have difficulty internalizing it. This article reports on our findings from a role-playing game designed to make students experience the difference between policy making as a process of rational design and policy making as a process of political negotiation. We conducted an experiment involving a large group of students enrolled in a first year, one-semester course, and a control group of students who enrolled in the same course 1 year later. The former were tested four times (start of the course, immediately before and after playing the game, and 3 months later) and the latter two times (at the start of the course and at the exam) for their understanding of how policy making—as-rational-design and policy making—as-political-negotiation differ on seven characteristics. Comparison of test results obtained before and after the role-play indicates a positive learning effect for some characteristics, and a negative learning effect for others.

The Drama of International Relations: A South China Sea Simulation

“…A number of studies (Chasek ; Enterline and Jepsen ) have also highlighted the potential benefits of having a control group (one that does not participate in the simulation) in this type of pedagogical research, so as to gauge the effectiveness of the simulation. Alternatively, Bots, Wagenaar, and Willemse () divided their students into two different groups for a role‐playing exercise with the first group adopting a rational process approach and the second group viewing the “process as a matter of political negotiation” (2010:745). While both ideas have the potential to enhance the pedagogical utility of the simulation, neither was followed.…”

Gaming Research in Policy and Organization

“…Directly relevant articles in the past years in Simulation & Gaming are Hofstede and Pedersen (2000); Joldersma & Geurts (1998); Rouwette, Vennix, and Thijssen (2000); Kuit, Mayer, and de Jong (2005); Wenzler, Kleinlugtenbelt, and Mayer (2005); P. Bots and van Dalen (2007); Mayer (2009); Wenzler (2009); P. W. G. Bots, Wagenaar, and Willemse (2010); Geurts & Joldersma (2001); Peters, Vissers & Heyne (1998).…”

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“…Except for Wolfe's (1991) comments on my human resource model and Mergen and Pray's (1992) presentation of total quality management issues, Gold and Pray (2001) found no other article on mathematical models for these latter issues in the simulation and gaming literature, so they are issues available for further exploration. Unlike mathematical models, operating procedures are easy to describe but frequently difficult to implement, because simulation participant often do not behave as one might expect, as Bots, Wagenaar, and Willemse (2010) found when they directed some participants to follow a rational-design procedure and other participants to follow a political negotiation procedure for resolving a policy problem. Therefore, when I write about a procedure I go beyond describing the procedure to show that I have succeeded in making it a viable part of a simulation.…”