What does Joe do for a living?

When I tell Joe Sixpack, or Mary Fifth O'Vodka, or Booze Liquordick, what I do for a living (I study public policy), I usually get blank stares in return. So, for my readership, and to help me hone my response to the question "so, what does that mean?," here are some of the things that I study, in no particular order.

I. General Theories of Political Behavior and Political Change
a. Rational Choice Theory
b. Political Psychology
c. Game Theory
D. Institutionalism
C. Bounded Rationality
D. Incrementalism
E. Punctuated Equilibrium



II. American Politics
a. voting behavior
1. partisanship
2. issue voting/ideology
3. issue evolution
4. political communication
5. public opinion

B. Political Parties and Elections
C. Interest Groups and Pluralism
D. Political institutions and Federalism
1. 4 Branches of government: influences, powers, limitations, rationales.

III. Public Policy
a. Policy typologies
b. Democratic Theory
c. Political institutions and Federalism
1. 4 Branches of government: influences, powers, limitations, rationales.
a. Clientalism and Bureaucratic Behavior
b. Public Management
c. agenda setting
d. etc, etc, etc, etc

d. Market Failure Theory
1. public goods
2. externalities
3. information asymmetry
4. natural monopolies
e. Government Failure Theory

IV. Policy Analysis and Research Methods
1. Research Design
a. experiments, quasi-experiments,
b. external, internal, and construct validity
c. measurement
2. Stats
a. probability, descriptive stats
b. inferential stats: regression, probit, logit, multilinear regression,
c. Hypothesis Testing
3. Problem Solving Techniques
1. Cost-benefit analysis
2. Linear Programming
3. Simulation Models
4. Problem Definition
5. utility theory and cognitive biases

Ok, that's most of it. So, that's what I do!