Developing Policy Analysis “Flight Simulators” in Different National Settings

Abstract

This article reviews two sets of generalizable lessons learned from adapting pedagogical material on the case method and policy workshops for Israeli Master of Public Policy programs. First, we discuss the considerations involved in the development of a cohesive series of original case studies in the Israeli context. Second, we review the creation of a specific exercise that integrates the case method and policy workshops pedagogy in the classroom—namely a Political Strategy Appendix—as an example of how the development of original pedagogical material in different settings may lead to instructional innovations that can be useful to the international community of policy scholars. Building on Stokes’s (1986) analogy of policy workshops as “flight simulators,” this article contributes to the recognition that as the worldwide community of policy scholars continues to grow and diversify, contextually specific flight simulators will enrich policy instruction both in and beyond U. S. borders.