|
The trips include visits to relevant sites of policy-making, with an emphasis on how actual policy problems were analyzed, solutions developed, and on the dilemmas of leadership, strategy, negotiation, and implementation. Our objective is for the students to meet with decision-makers from all different sectors willing to share their knowledge and expertise.
The study trip is an integral part of the first-year curriculum, requiring preparation beforehand, and afterwards, a final group report presented orally and turned in to the professor directing the study trip for 3 credits.
Second-year students may also do short study
trips, which are developed in relation to their Concentration.
Recent examples of study trips:
CHINA
The study trip to China provided students with the opportunity to examine the country’s progression as a major actor of the existing international system. The objective was for students to meet with political figures, industrial companies, research centers, and stakeholders within the civil society, to discuss the complex transformation of China's state and society. Panels, visits and lectures focused on increasing industrialization, mode of governance, environmental issues, and policy implementation situated within a rapidly changing domestic and international environment.
 The trip’s itinerary included three cities: Shanghai, the engine of China’s economy; Xi’an, the former political capital of six dynasties with its famous historic sites, where students explored China's rural areas; and Beijing, the present capital and cultural center.
China trip program 
BRAZIL
 The study trip to Brazil (December 2005 and February 2007) allowed students to examine some of the main challenges facing an important "emerging country", by focusing on the collective action between different social actors: political actors, municipal authorities, business and trade union representatives, NGOs, high officials in development institutions, specialists in foreign affairs, professors and experts in the relevant fields. The main aim of this study trip was to familiarize the students with different institutional settings and with the specificities of the policy-making process in Brazil, and to compare their findings with their own experience.
 The interviews and debates that took place during the course of the week focused on a series of policy challenges (urban development, health, police and security, government procurement, labor relations, the funding of development), as well as on some of the most important national issues (energy, agriculture, industrial competition, trade, foreign policy).
The students visited São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, accompanied by Professor Alfredo Valladao, Director of the Mercosur Chair at Sciences Po, and Marina Kundu, Director of the MPA at Sciences Po.
Brazil trip program
GERMANY
The trip to Germany in March 2006 was part of a course taught by Dr. François Bafoil, Director of research at the CNRS and the CERI, which aims at understanding the problematic of collective action in the new Europe by focusing on European policy, the decision-making process, and multi-level governance. Two main policies which were analyzed are labor market policies and regional development policies.
The students visited Berlin, the Brandenburg region, Frankfurt,
and Eisenhüttenstadt, accompanied by Dr. Bafoil.
 Berlin trip program
|
|
