SO YOU WANT TO TAKE A COURSE IN PUBLIC POLICY ADVOCACY?

As a practitioner with a long experience in public policy advocacy, the reality is that public policy advocacy can’t be taught out of a book and/or in a purely theorist/academic mode. Indeed the skills needed for success relies more on relationships and critical thinking than people think. As such, anyone who enters a class on public policy advocacy should really look at public policy advocacy not as a subject to be learned but as a skill that must be developed individually.

When a public policy advocate represents a client, he/she puts himself/herself out in front and place his/her own reputation and relationships on the line. A public policy advocate must therefore know himself/herself as well as know the issues and for that reason the focus of any course on the subject should deal as much on personal development as on practice and mechanics.

Public policy advocacy is about the exchange of ideas and information just as much as it is about assisting clients. The world of politics is a dynamic place where trust and reputation are keys to success. Key for students is to demonstrate and improve their interpersonal, persuasion and speaking skills. What is most important is the development of skills for understanding and working with government officials. Students need to learn from and interact with leading public policy advocates and government officials. They need to practice “advocacy ” e.g. by understanding a topic and developing the necessary strategies for a mock pitch.

Any course on public policy advocacy needs to illustrate why public policy advocacy is an active, vital and legitimate part of the governmental process and how public policy advocates help to shape public policy. It is important to  expose students to the theory, fundamentals, techniques, styles and practice of public policy advocacy .

Public policy advocacy is not a “one size fits all” process and lectures and discussions need to focus on many disciplines to understand the “art” and “science” of public policy advocacy including practical politics, political science, law, history, psychology, urban affairs, economics and public policy. Courses on public policy advocacy must rely on a practical approach and convey a general appreciation for public policy advocacy , demonstrating how public policy advocacy really works and what public policy advocates do, why and how they do it; offering insight into the importance of developing strategies, methods for dealing with elected and unelected government officials, communications skills and the proper conduct for working with clients. It is important to understand such topics as  business development, client and project management, political intelligence gathering, legislative, regulatory and procurement processes.

Public policy advocacy is something you can’t learn by reading a book. It’s all about good instincts and instincts can never be taught. In short, you can go to school to learn about public policy advocacy , but you don’t become a public policy advocate by going to school. If you think when you finish a course on public advocacy, you can be a public policy advocate , you’re wrong. Not everybody has the instincts to be a good public policy advocate .

It’s not so much the culture you learn when you study public policy advocacy as the nuts and bolts of the process and its various components, something called “applied politics,” compared with traditional political science, which is far more theoretical. That's the reason why any course on the subject should be taught by practitioners and not by academics however distinguished they may be. If they've never engaged in the real world public policy advocacy, they simply can't teach the stuff.

One misconception about public policy advocacy is that it’s simply hiring somebody who goes into Parliament and/or visits government officials and talks to people to influence legislation. That’s a very narrow view. What we teach in public policy advocacy is that it’s important to develop a clear strategy. These include everything from media , social media, using survey research to evaluate how effective your advocacy campaign is to the public, developing grass roots and grass tops, coalition building, and knowing the law.

There is a type of personality common among the best public policy advocates , a certain indefinable quality that makes certain people appealing. Admittedly it is possible to teach a lot of things about public policy advocacy but obviously you can’t give someone a personality transplant.