Stewardship in Large Public Projects: The Practicality of Shakespeare

Abstract

Can reading great literature, considering its heroes and small characters, improve the performance of public sector actors? King Lear’s characters fault a wickedly disinterested heaven for life’s setbacks and woes. Yet Shakespeare makes clear that these actors’ own terrible choices beset the king, his family and the rest of us who are subject to the acts of public leaders. Reading this literature as analogy for the effectiveness of the modern public sector suggests how administrative operation of our democratic state may – or may not – successfully parcel power and control so as to limit negative externalities derived from ill-informed, self-serving or rent-seeking executive and individual decisions. Lear’s tragic arc mimics a sorrowful “muddling through” and potentially unnecessary “satisficing” in certain large public works projects. One large public project currently deemed successful is examined here – the replacement of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco – as a reflection on separated powers, the limits of human nature, and the inevitability of error.