| WEEK # | TOPICS | KEY DATES |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction, Student Research Interests, and Cross-cutting Methodological Issues | First class participation instruction |
| 2A | Turning Assumptions into Research Questions | Second class participation instruction |
| 2B | Turning Assumptions into Research Questions: Case Examples Guest: Session with Prof. Merilee Grindle, Professor of International Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University | Third class participation instruction Short paper due |
| 3 | Folding "Politics" and "Clientelism" into Planning Research - Comparative Cases | |
| 4A | Bureaucracies and Other Organizations: Street-level Bureaucrats, Front-line Workers | |
| 4B | Bureaucracies and Other Organizations: Mixing the Politics and the Management of Cities Guest: Session with Prof. J. Phillip Thompson, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT | |
| 4C | Bureaucracies and Other Organizations: Variables Driving Organizational Behavior - From Within and Without Guest: Session with Prof. Michael Piore, Economics / Political Science, MIT | |
| 5 | Past First-year-paper Examples - Sessions with Authors | |
| 6 | Country and Subnational Comparisons - Lessons for Research Guests: Sessions with Prof. Richard Locke, Political Science, MIT, and Professor Richard Snyder, Political Science, Brown University | |
| 7 | Uncertainty, Bounded Rationality, and "Satisficing" Session on MIT authorization for research involving interviewing, with the Committee on the Use of Humans as Experimental Subjects. | Short paper due |
| 8 | Interpreting Duplication, Overlap, and Lack of Inter-agency Coordination | Draft of final paper due |
| 9 | Interviewing: First and Follow-up Questions, etc. | Paper review assignment due |
| 10 | Discussions of Draft First-year Paper Proposals | |
| 11 | Last Class | Final paper due |