Harvard Kennedy School Research Articles

Remembering JPAM's first editor, Raymond Vernon

Raymond Vernon, the founding editor of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, died on August 26, 1999, at the age of 85. He was Clarence Dillon Professor of International Affairs Emeritus at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government at the time of his death, having served on the faculties of various schools at Harvard since 1959. He will be remembered for his contributions to a number of public policy areas. For example, in the late 1950s he led a research team that produced a study of the future of the New York metropolitan area, regarded as a landmark in the field of urban planning. In the last two decades he wrote extensively on the phenomenon of multinational corporations. His last book appeared in 1998 and was awarded a prize in 1999 by the Academy of International Business.

Understanding the New World of Health Care

This address introduces an informed new leader who demonstrates our specialty in action. As you read Paul Uhlig’s inspiring words, you will be proud of the spirit that is stirring in the wheatfields of Kansas and throughout the specialty. Like a cardiothoracic resident who learned transplantation immunology, Paul brought “the right stuff” to the right place. As the first Alley-Sheridan Scholar-in-Residence, he had a startling and stimulating impact on his fellow students and teachers at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The “impact factor” of cardiothoracic surgeons, reflecting their unique combination of knowledge, judgment, problem-solving skill, and commitment to effective action, is sorely needed in the restructuring of health care. Former President of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons Ralph Alley showed how important strategic surgical thinking can be. As advisor to the New York State Department of Health, he introduced peer review of cardiac catheterization and cardiac surgery, using professionalism for quality improvement instead of government regulation. The skills required for effective action during the current health care revolution include a thorough understanding of policy development, health economics, government, and the political process. Paul’s writing reflects the broad population viewpoint we need to develop, while preserving a fundamental value of our specialty, exquisite sensitivity to the trust and care of the individual patient. We need more Alley-Sheridan Scholars. The Thoracic Surgery Foundation for Research and Education is promoting development of health policy skills in cardiothoracic surgeons as an important part of its mission. There is early evidence of progress. Three Society of Thoracic Surgeons presidents, the vice president, the treasurer, secretary, and chair and many members of the Government Relations Committee are among the 150 scholars who have completed the 10-day executive course. Their recent success in The Society of Thoracic Surgeons’ initiative to clarify thoracic practice expenses reflects the strengthened tactical skills and strategic thinking of our leaders.

Study Seeks Bipartisan Technology Policy

Astudy designed to put an end to 30 years of squabbles between Repubi licans and Democrats over what constitutes the best technology policy for the country has been assembled by a group of Harvard University policy researchers. The debate hit an all-time low during the last Congress, when Republicans, with little debate, sought to demolish all Clinton Administration technology initiatives. The study attempts to rationalize, with examples, the sometimes confusing mix between industry, universities, and federal and state governments in the genesis and support of new technologies. The project's director was emeritus professor Lewis M. Branscomb of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. It was supported by the Council on Competitiveness Policy, a congressionally funded think tank in Washington, D.C. The study was introduced as a paper, Investing in Innovation, at a bipartisan briefing for aides of key Senate and House committees late last month. Branscomb also presented the paper at the recent American Ass...

The Rise and Fall of Interagency Cooperation: The U. S. Global Change Research Program

Harold Seidman has called interagency committees crabgrass in the garden of They are universally condemned, but efforts to extirpate them seldom succeed, for new committees grow in their place. This is because alternatives generally are worse, and there is a compelling need to coordinate programs that sprawl across many agencies. An example of an interagency committee that worked, at least for a period, is the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, charged with coordinating the multibillion dollar Global Change Research Program. Born under Reagan, the committee rose to prominence under Bush, being cited as an exemplary model for other interagency programs. Under Clinton, it was used as a prototype again, even as it declined in influence. The evolution of the committee illuminates the key factors that strengthen and weaken interagency cooperation in In a time when reinvention is in vogue and public administrators are asked to seek efficiency and become more effective, it is instructive to understand examples of attempts to innovate institutionally in Who influences institutional innovation in public policy and administration, and how? What are the consequences of such administrative entrepreneurship? Under what conditions do institutional innovators succeed or fail? Lessons can be learned from the attempt to manage the U.S. Global Change Research Program. This program, which studies such environmental issues as global warming, deforestation, and ozone depletion, did not exist in 1987. By 1995 its budget stood at $1.8 billion. It is the prime example of environmental megascience, complicated by being interagency science also. Born during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, the program grew substantially in the era of George Bush and has continued under Bill Clinton. Involving at one time or another as many as 18 departments and agencies, the program was at one point hailed as the model interagency science program. It became so celebrated that Bush's science advisor, D. Allan Bromley, used it as a basis for other interagency strategic science programs, and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government featured it in two case studies (Kennedy, 1992a, 1992b). Behind the Global Change Research Program was an interagency committee initially called under Reagan the Committee on Earth Sciences. It became the Committee on Earth and Environmental Sciences during the Bush years, and then the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources under Clinton. For many years, the global change interagency management system worked -- or was widely perceived to work. The committee used multiagency planning, cross-budgeting, joint project solicitations, and cofunding. It filled research gaps among agencies in the context of national priorities so that the program was more than the sum of individual agency interests. These innovative practices belied the conventional wisdom of public administration, as expressed by Seidman (1975, 197), that interagency committees are crabgrass in the garden of government. In the Clinton period, however, coordination faltered, and such diverse observers as the Republican Congress, National Academy of Sciences, and some of the committee's leading members commented on its decline. It is important to explain the evolution of this unusual institutional model. Its fate reveals lessons of broad relevance for the management of interagency science, Indeed, interagency programs in general. The dilemma illuminated by the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources is that there is little recourse but to use interagency committees for purposes of coordination when programs overlap, as they so often do. As Seidman (1975) pointed out, such entities may be condemned, but efforts to extirpate them seldom work, for new committees grow in their place. Alternatives to interagency committees, such as the creation of all-embracing superagencies or the appointment of a czar, may mitigate certain problems but usually create others. …

If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics

This is a revolutionary and powerfully argued feminist analysis of modern economics, revealing how woman's housework, caring of the young, sick and the old is automatically excluded from value in economic theory. An example of this pervasive and powerful process is the United Nation System of National Accounts which is used for wars and determining balance of payments and loan requirements. The author has also written Women, Politics and Power and is a formidable force in the politics of New Zealand, serving three terms in Parliament and helping bring down a Prime Minister. She holds a doctorate in political economy and was a visiting Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Investing In Our Future: Improving The Economic Status Of Children

Investing In Our Future: Improving The Economic Status Of Children

Journals in Technology

Technology and Culture Official publication of the Society for the History of Technology. University of Chicago Press. Science, Technology, & Human Values Cosponsored by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and MIT's Program in Science, Technology and Society. John Wiley and Sons. Research in Philosophy and Technology Official publication of the Society for Philosophy and Technology. JAI Press.