Domestic Terrorism

DESCRIPTION OF THE ISSUE ANALYSIS PAPER ASSIGNMENT
This assignment is designed to allow you to familiarize yourself with the dynamics surrounding contemporary policy issues, and to apply ideas developed in this course in analyzing them. Your primary analytical resource for this assignment will be the course materials and ideas presented in assigned readings and lectures. You are not required to do any outside research outside of the course materials. Your primary resource for subject matter for this assignment will be a website titled CQ Researcher. This website was developed and is maintained by the non-partisan and highly respected company that publishes Congressional Quarterly. This website normally charges an access fee for viewing but Washington State University libraries pay for access for all faculty, staff and students but to enjoy this benefit you must log in to the website through the WSU portal. You can access this website by typing this link into your web browser: http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/ or by following these steps:

Go to WSU Libraries homepage (Links to an external site.).
Put the title “CQ Researcher” in the “Search It” box. Select Search.
You will be prompted to sign in using your WSU ID and password.
When the “Search It” list appears, look for “CQ Researcher (online)”. Select it.
On the next screen, select “CQ Electronic Library”.
And you should be in!
On the home page of this website (on the left tool bar) you will find a link to Issue Tracker. By clicking on Issue Tracker you will to bring up a listing of public policy categories and within each of these categories a list of issue reports (these reports have been posted every week since 1991 so there are literally hundreds of “white papers” to choose from on almost any imaginable policy topic). If you have a particular subject matter interest you may pick any issue that has been analyzed in CQ Researcher over the past two years (since August 2019). Otherwise, I have compiled a list of topics that have been of particular interest to the public and to policy makers over the past year. The policy topics and the date they were posted to website are as follows:

The Pandemic Economy (7/17/2020)
Abortion (8/15/2019)
Climate Change (10/5/2019)
Global Terrorism (12/6/2019)
Gun Control (7/3/2020)
Health Care Policy (10/17/2019)
Higher Education (10/4/2019)
Immigration and the Pandemic (7/15/2020)
Marijuana Legalization (8/22/2019)
Zoonotic Diseases (6/26/2020)
Vaccine Controversies (2/19/2016) (although this report falls outside of the time frame, I think it is very relevant)
Please note that you may select one CQ Researcher Report to complete all three of your analytical papers described below. In the alternative, you may select different reports if you so choose.

IMPORTANT: FOR EACH OF THESE ISSUE ANALYSIS PAPERS YOU SHOULD UTILIZE MATERIALS FROM THE ASSIGNED READINGS AND OTHER COURSE MATERIALS WHERE APPROPRIATE.

Your assignment is to write short (three pages maximum, typed and double-spaced) issue briefs in which you respond to a series of questions relevant to different topics addressed in this course. For example, one of the topics we address is how all policy debates are conflicts between different political values or interpretations of what those values mean (Issue Analysis Paper #1). You will complete three of this issue papers throughout the course. For each paper begin with a brief summary describing the issue (not more that part of a paragraph). Then for each paper follow these instructions:

Issue Analysis Paper #1

Deborah Stone discusses several overarching policy goals (these are sometimes referred to as political values) of public policy such as freedom, security, equity, welfare, and efficiency and how these goals are (1) individually ambiguous in their meanings (in other words, they have multiple definitions that can be manipulated for political objectives), and (2) often in conflict with each other within individual policy debates. For example, screening passengers at airports can be viewed as posing a conflict between those who favor freedom (“why should I have to take my shoes off?”) and those who favor security (“I think everyone should be a suspect if it will prevent another terrorist attack”). For this paper, select an issue and address the following questions: What policy goals are in conflict in this case? In what respects are the policy goals you selected ambiguous in their meanings?

Deborah Stone “Policy Paradox” is the book.
I uploaded the article onto a word doc and sent it.

All assignments are to utilize the following format: be written using times-new roman, 12 point font; be double-spaced with the margins set at 1 inch. Since this is a double-spaced paper there should NOT be an extra space between paragraphs. All assignments should include a cover page, and a works cited page (these are separate from your total page count).

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