Maxwell School Research Articles

What Is Wrong with Advice on Strategic Planning?

Public Administration ReviewVolume 70, Issue s1 p. s222-s223 What Is Wrong with Advice on Strategic Planning? Rebecca Hendrick, Corresponding Author Rebecca Hendrick University of Illinois ChicagoRebecca Hendrick is an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her current research examines local government financial condition in the United States, factors that affect it, and how local officials manage it.E-mail:hendrick@uic.eduSearch for more papers by this author Rebecca Hendrick, Corresponding Author Rebecca Hendrick University of Illinois ChicagoRebecca Hendrick is an associate professor in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her current research examines local government financial condition in the United States, factors that affect it, and how local officials manage it.E-mail:hendrick@uic.eduSearch for more papers by this author First published: 03 December 2010 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02279.xCitations: 3Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume70, Issues1Special Issue: Special Issue on the Future of Public Administration in 2020Edited by Rosemary O'Leary and David M. Van SlykeSponsored by the Phanstiel Family and the Maxwell School of Syracuse UniversityDecember 2010Pages s222-s223 RelatedInformation

Strategic Planning from Robert McNamara to Gov 2.0

Public Administration ReviewVolume 70, Issue s1 p. s220-s221 Strategic Planning from Robert McNamara to Gov 2.0 Sandford Borins, Corresponding Author Sandford Borins Harvard UniversitySandford Borins is a professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto and a research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His latest book, Governing Fables: Learning from Public Sector Narratives, will be published in 2011 by Information Age.E-mail:borins@utsc.utoronto.caSearch for more papers by this author Sandford Borins, Corresponding Author Sandford Borins Harvard UniversitySandford Borins is a professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto and a research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His latest book, Governing Fables: Learning from Public Sector Narratives, will be published in 2011 by Information Age.E-mail:borins@utsc.utoronto.caSearch for more papers by this author First published: 03 December 2010 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02278.xCitations: 5Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume70, Issues1Special Issue: Special Issue on the Future of Public Administration in 2020Edited by Rosemary O'Leary and David M. Van SlykeSponsored by the Phanstiel Family and the Maxwell School of Syracuse UniversityDecember 2010Pages s220-s221 RelatedInformation

Introduction to the Symposium on the Future of Public Administration in 2020

Public Administration ReviewVolume 70, Issue s1 p. s5-s11 Introduction to the Symposium on the Future of Public Administration in 2020 Rosemary O’Leary, Rosemary O’LearySearch for more papers by this authorDavid M. Van Slyke, David M. Van SlykeSearch for more papers by this author Rosemary O’Leary, Rosemary O’LearySearch for more papers by this authorDavid M. Van Slyke, David M. Van SlykeSearch for more papers by this author First published: 03 December 2010 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02241.xCitations: 13Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Citing Literature Volume70, Issues1Special Issue: Special Issue on the Future of Public Administration in 2020Edited by Rosemary O'Leary and David M. Van SlykeSponsored by the Phanstiel Family and the Maxwell School of Syracuse UniversityDecember 2010Pages s5-s11 RelatedInformation

A Tribute to Donald Meinig

Donald Meinig's probing mind, clear prose, and sweeping geographical perspective have enlivened American historical and cultural geography for more than fifty years. His contributions to the discipline span many scales: His ideas on the evolution and meaning of landscape have enriched our regional appreciation for localities across North America; his geopolitical assessments of colonization, imperialism, and globalization still resonate today; and his continental-scale analysis of more than 500 years of North American historical geography marks a piece of scholarship and illustrates a point of view that has in fundamental ways influenced ideas both within and beyond the bounds of academic geography. As two of Don's former doctoral students, we are delighted to offer this special issue of the Geographical Review in recognition of Don's impact on the field. The contributors, including other former students, friends, and kindred geographical spirits, reflect both Don's depth and breadth, his insatiable curiosity about the world, and his fascination with the links between geography, history, culture, and landscape. LIFE OF LEARNING--THE MAKING OF A GEOGRAPHER Don was born in 1924 and raised in the Palouse country of eastern Washington State. Indeed, a splendid autobiographical account of his life, entitled A Life of Learning, was published in 1992 as part of the Charles Homer Haskins Lecture Series at the University of Chicago. In that account Don recalls his early fascination with maps, railroads, and the unfolding global events of the 1930s. Those years revealed his geographical bent and prefigured a post-World War II decision to enroll in Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Nourished by some fine professors--including Carroll Quigley and Ernst Feilchenfeld--but chastened by Washington, D.C.'s stifling political environment, Don decided to return west after Georgetown and enter graduate school in geography at the University of Washington. The Australian geographer Graham Lawton proved pivotal in guiding Don's graduate work in geography. With Lawton's encouragement, Don turned toward a reconnaissance of his own backyard. The product was a dissertation on the historical geography of the interior Pacific Northwest that resulted in the publication of The Great Columbia Plain (1968). Don's long academic career began in 1950 with a position in a small geography department at the University of Utah. While along the Wasatch Front, Don and his wife, Lee, raised a family, and Don settled into a busy new career of teaching and research that even included a pioneering foray into television as the host of a locally broadcast lecture series in geography. In 1958 a Fulbright award took Don to the University of Adelaide, where he completed research on the historical geography of the South Australian wheat frontier. On the Margins of the Good Earth was published four years later. New opportunities at Syracuse University prompted Don and his family to make the permanent move east in 1959. Settling into upstate New York, Don's work in historical geography continued to reflect western American interests, including pathbreaking regional studies on the Mormon culture region (1965), Texas (1969), and the Southwest (1971b), as well as three chapters on New York State's historical geography in a volume edited by John Thompson (Meinig 1966a, 1966b, 1966c). Don took the helm as chair of the Geography Department between 1968 and 1973 and assumed an active role in shaping the university's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (becoming a Maxwell Professor of Geography in 1973). He also served as chair for more than twenty doctoral students during the Syracuse years, while teaching an array of popular graduate and undergraduate courses. Don's pen was particularly productive between 1976 and 2004. He authored more than two dozen research articles and book chapters, served as editor for the enduring The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes (1979), a rich collection of essays that became a classic in the field, and completed his sweeping four-volume interpretation of historical geography entitled The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History (1986, 1993, 1998, 2004). …

Non-State Transnational Transfers: Types and Characteristics

Editor's Note: If McDonald's franchises, Chinese toys, and Indian call centers recall globalization's noisy surface features, then migrant remittances must capture its quieter underside. At some $300 billion a year, global remittances represent a leading example of transnational value-transfer. Supplementing family savings and foreign exchange, remittances rank among the most sizeable, stable, and counter-cyclical financial flows to developing economies. Yet, remittances invite special attention mainly because they represent neither commercial transactions nor official aid. Unlike much non-state finance or goods and services crisscrossing national borders, remittances reflect unrequited, unidirectional flows of value. With remittances constituting so prominent a fixture in today's global economy one is prompted to wonder: do there exist other, significant categories of “private,” or, less ambiguously, “non-state” transnational transfers? Can such transfers be analyzed as a coherent set of distinct activities and social processes? These questions are debated in this Forum, which is reflective of a conference on the topic sponsored by the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University in October 2007. The articles assembled here highlight an increasingly prominent, albeit underappreciated, segment of “globalization.” This spectrum of activities involves non-state actors—a short list would include individuals, faith-based charities, philanthropic foundations, professional associations, universities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and (sometimes) corporations—who transfer something of value—money, goods and services, expertise, technology, or norms—transnationally. Because unidirectional flows are involved, these non-state transnational transfers are distinguishable from (quid pro quo) transactions . In addition , while this universe also excludes official transfers such as foreign aid or debt relief, issues of sovereignty invariably arise nonetheless. For example, governments may avoid social unrest by capitalizing on non-state transnational transfers or, alternatively, sacrifice legitimacy through failure to provide what (foreign) private actors seem so capable of furnishing. In addition, non-state transnational transfers can impact democratic citizenship with …

Workshop Report: Resilience in Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Natural Disasters

On January 16-17, 2009, the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism (INSCT), a joint program of Syracuse University's College of Law and Maxwell School, hosted an interdisciplinary workshop gathering scholars and practitioners with interest in the topic of resilience in conflict and disaster settings. INSCT Director William Banks, INSCT Fellow Nick Armstrong, Professor Pat Longstaff (Newhouse), and Professor Ines Mergel (Maxwell), spearheaded this effort as a vital first step in a larger effort to understand the underlying factors that impact a society's ability to recover from a major conflict or disaster. Attendees included experts and academics from the U.S. Department of State's Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), USAID's Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation (CMM), U.S. Army War College, West Point, Syracuse Center of Excellence, L.C. Smith College of Engineering, and several academic disciplines such as ecology, anthropology, public administration, and economics. The purpose of this workshop was to identify the commonalities in various resilient systems in order to generate theoretical development for future resilience research.

The Insidious Work of the University: From Nationalism to Excellence to Entrepreneurialism1

“We are committed to grow the skills and competence of men and women who are or soon will be at the center of making decisions associated with strategic and operational security matters in the public or private sector. Content of our 2-week courses will expose them to the next generation of security thinking and allow them to interact with and learn from colleagues of other agencies and organizations. It will take them to the next level of their careers both intellectually and professionally.” - Flyer for the National Security Studies Program, Maxwell School, Syracuse University

Future of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid: Is U.S. Entitlement Spending Sustainable?

This article features a panel discussion on the future of U.S. entitlement spending organized by Jeff Brown for the American Risk and Insurance Association 2006 Annual Meeting. The moderator, Jeff Brown, received his Ph.D. from MIT and is the William G. Karnes Professor of Finance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During 2001-2002 he served as a senior economist with the President's Council of Economic Advisers and on the staff of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social security. In 2006, Dr. Brown was nominated by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a member of the Social security Advisory Board. The first panelist is Dr. Katherine Baicker. Dr. Baicker was nominated by President Bush in September 2005 and was confirmed by the Senate in November 2005 as a member of the President's Council for Economic Advisers. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard in 1998 and is a professor of health economics at the Harvard School of Public Health and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. She was previously on the faculty of Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Medical School, and the School of Public Affairs at UCLA. She has an extensive record of publishing in top economic journals. The next panelist is Dr. Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Dr. Holtz-Eakin is currently the director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Geo-economic Studies. Recently, he served as the director of the Congressional Budget Office. From 2001 to 2003, he served as the chief economist at the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). He has previously served as a professor at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University as well as the chair of the department of economics. He has been the editor of the National Tax Journal and has a very long-standing interest in public policy issues. He has written extensively on tax policy and entrepreneurship. The final panelist is Dr. Peter Orszag. Dr. Orszag is the Joseph Peckman Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and soon to be the deputy director of the Economic Studies Program. He is also the director of the Hamilton Project, director of the Retirement Security Project, co-director of several other projects, as well as a research professor at Georgetown University. During the Clinton Administration, he served as special assistant to the President for Economic Policy, as well as the senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers. His research interests are also quite broad. They include pensions, Social Security, tax policy, and other issues as well. He received his Ph.D. from The London School of Economics, which he attended as a Marshall Scholar. He is the editor and author of numerous books and countless articles. MODERATOR-Jeff Brown: Is U.S. entitlement spending sustainable? Even before we begin the panel, I can tell you that the unanimous answer to this question by members of our panel is no. The more important question is, therefore, what are we going to do about it? For perspective, total federal government spending has hovered around 20 percent of GDP for several decades. Looking forward, spending on the three major entitlement programs-Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid-is projected to consume 25 percent of GDP within 75 years. Therefore, when one looks at the long-term fiscal health of the United States, there are few issues that loom larger than the growth of these programs. We have three panelists who will address this issue today. All three have distinguished themselves as outstanding academic researchers and as effective public servants at very high levels. Among them, they have served in the first Bush Administration, the Clinton Administration, and the current Bush Administration. Dr. Baicker will begin the discussion. Dr. Katherine Baicker: Discussion of the relative stability of total federal spending and revenues masks a major shift in the underlying composition of the federal budget that foretells trouble in the future if nothing changes. …

“I'm Changing the Climate, Ask Me How!”: The Politics of the Anti-SUV Campaign

Political Science QuarterlyVolume 121, Issue 3 p. 397-423 “I'm Changing the Climate, Ask Me How!”: The Politics of the Anti-SUV Campaign SARAH PRALLE, SARAH PRALLE SARAH PRALLE is an assistant professor of political science at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. She has recently published Branching Out, Digging In: Environmental Advocacy and Agenda Setting with Georgetown University Press.Search for more papers by this author SARAH PRALLE, SARAH PRALLE SARAH PRALLE is an assistant professor of political science at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. She has recently published Branching Out, Digging In: Environmental Advocacy and Agenda Setting with Georgetown University Press.Search for more papers by this author First published: 15 February 2013 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1538-165X.2006.tb00576.xCitations: 2 AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume121, Issue3Fall 2006Pages 397-423 RelatedInformation

Conceptualizing and Contextualizing Liberty and Freedom

20 Historically Speaking · September/October 2005 tion ofagency at the heart ofAmerican political and cultural history. Rogan Kersh is associate professor of political science at the Maxwell School ofCitizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. He is author of Dreams of a More Perfect Union (Cornell University Press, 2001). 1 Rogan Kersh, Dreams afa More Perfect Union (Cornell University Press, 2001). Details on the methodology used are at ibid., 133-34 (Court cases); 305-09 (newspapers). 2 Karen Orren and Stephen Skowronek, In Search of American Political Development (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 121. 3 Rogan Kersh, "Rethinking Periodization? APD and the Macro-History ofthe United States," Polity (forthcoming 2005). 4 For details, and a list ofthe syllabi reviewed, see Rogan Kersh, "The State ofAmerican Political Development: The View from the Classroom," Perspectives on Politics 3 (forthcoming 2005). 5 Stephen Skowronek and Matthew Glassman, eds., Formative Acts: Reckoning with Agency in American Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming 2006). Conceptualizing and Contextualizing Liberty and Freedom Brian J. Glenn In 1843 an elderly man who fought the British at Concord sat down to talk about the conflict. The young interviewer asked Captain Preston what offense caused him to take up arms that day, only to discover the old soldier had never actually purchased the stamps he was obligated to under the Stamp Act, never drank tea (and hence was never taxed), and had not ever heard of, let alone read, Harrington, Sidney, or Locke. "Well, then, what was the matter?" his confused interviewer inquired. "Young man," Preston replied, "what we meant in going for those Redcoats was this: we always had been free, and we meant to be free always. They didn't mean we should" (1-2). Thus begins the story line in Liberty and Freedom, David Hackett Fischer's vast catalogue ofhow Americans have understood the meaning ofthe two terms "liberty" and "freedom ." Liberty and freedom have always been central to American culture, Fischer argues, and his challenge is to present the multifaceted meanings of them as they changed over time. To do so, the author draws on the work ofTocqueville to frame the two as "habits of the heart," customs, beliefs, traditions, and folkways of people, which are examined "from the inside and the outside___ We know it from the inside by reenacting it in our minds, and we test the accuracy of that reenactment by studying it empirically from the outside" (4). For analytical purposes, Fischer defines freedom as "the rights of belonging and full membership in a community of free people (whether a tribe, a nation, or humanity itself)" (10). Liberty is used in the context of "independence , separation, and autonomy for individuals or group" (10). Freedom, therefore, is communal, while liberty is about autonomy. Freedom concerns issues of who is part of a given group, while liberty pertains to what those members are allowed to do. Stodgy Puritan New England was very much about freedom, although it placed all sorts of demands on its members in terms of the mores they were expected to uphold. Members ofthe southern gentry loved the liberty they had to ponder life's mysteries, a liberty predicated on a definition of freedom that did not extend to the slaves who made their lifestyles possible. Fischer explores how the various segments of the American polity understood the words freedom and liberty when they used them. Few citizens choose to take up a pen and explain it for historians, alas. To uncover these meanings we need instead to study the lived experiences ofAmericans and see their interpretations through the images they constructed to express them. To this end, Fischer has combed the nation to find images carved into powder horns, sewn on flags, stitched onto quilts, printed as campaign posters, written into songs, and carved into monuments. The breadth of what he finds is stunning, often amusing, and always fascinating, making the book extremely hard to put down— and extremely useful to teachers seeking a quick and eloquent discussion ofone issue or another. The author presents his material briskly and in a format that flows nicely. Much to his credit, Fischer captures not only the breadth of imagery over time, but also covers the...

Citizenship at Home and Abroad

Editor's Note: What is the meaning of citizenship in the context of globalization? The proliferation of transnational organizations in the postwar era coupled with the internationalization of human rights and the rise of supranational governmental institutions have led some observers to claim a kind of postnational citizenship is emerging with its own set of benefits and burdens that is related to, yet distinct from, citizenship within any given country. Generally speaking, this burgeoning debate over postnational citizenship has been organized around two related questions. First, there is the question of what Thomas Pogge (2004) has called the morality of citizenship, that is, how should the role of citizen be designed and performed. In response to this question, scholars have disagreed not only about the specific elements of citizenship that ought to be preferred, but also about the very idea of citizenship as a single ideal that can be meaningfully theorized across different political settings. Second, there is the question offeasibility: what kind of shared citizenship is actually possible in a world made up of separate nation-states? In reacting to this question, scholars have disagreed about how the political relationships within and between sovereign states shape and constrain postnational citizenship, either making possible a wholly new type of transnational citizenship or simply permitting a new projection of national citizenship abroad. In an effort to advance discussion of the central questions in the postnational citizenship debate, the Sawyer Law and Politics Program at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs solicited five essays. With an eye toward the normative ideals and practical possibilities of postnational citizenship, the authors were asked to consider the conventional practices of citizenship out of which--and against which--new kinds of citizenship are thought to be growing. The resulting essays are presented here in edited form. The first two essays, by Margarita Este'vez-Abe, Glyn Morgan, and Jill Frank, squarely address the normative question of how citizenship ought to be structured. Este'vez-Abe and Morgan argue that citizenship ought to be structured around the maximization of individual choice, discovery, and invention. The authors root their argument in the observation that highly productive advanced industrial societies depend on the capacity for individual creativity. These societies and the ways in which they are organized must be taken seriously for reasons of power. In short, today, one either lives within an industrially advanced society or risks being dominated by one. Indeed, for Este'vez-Abe and Morgan, these societies not only are powerful, but they also are worthy of praise because they can promote social well-being through properly organized markets and appropriately crafted social policies. In contrast, Frank rejects the idea that good citizenship can be measured according to some fixed standard of law or institutional design. Drawing on a close reading ofAristotle's political philosophy, Frank argues that citizenship ought to be understood as an activity guided by practical wisdom and preserved by virtue. The hallmark of good citizenship is not an ideal of creative individuality, as Este'vez-Abe and Morgan would have it, but an ongoing practice of

Helping Children Left Behind: State Aid and the Pursuit of Educational Equality

Helping Children Left Behind: State Aid and the Pursuit of Educational Equality. Edited by John Yinger. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. 145p. $40.00.The role of state courts in defining educational finances is the focus of this book that results from a 2001 conference in the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University. The author explores the role of state appellate courts since the seminal case of Serrano v. Priest (1971) challenging the constitutionality of local property taxation to fund local schools. About one-half of subsequent state courts followed suit, but the other half did not.

The Growth of American Political Development: The View from the Classroom

American Political Development (APD) is among the fastest-growing areas in political science. Barely two decades ago, the “field” consisted of a handful of works by a few scholars. Since then political scientists have been joined under the APD banner by researchers from other disciplines in issuing dozens of books and hundreds of articles, organizing a biennial APD conference, and teaching numerous graduate and undergraduate courses. The flagship APD journal, Studies in American Political Development, in print since 1986, is ranked among the top political science journals; also well regarded is the Journal of Policy History, begun three years later. The Politics and History section of the American Political Science Association, likewise founded recently, has the eighth largest membership of the discipline's 35 subgroupings. Newly minted PhDs list APD as a specific research and teaching interest, and political science departments are matching that surging interest with job postings. And overviews of recent scholarship on the American polity separately highlight APD approaches. Perhaps inevitably, however, the rapid emergence of APD as a full-fledged disciplinary concentration has been accompanied by developmental problems.Rogan Kersh is associate professor of political science and public administration at Syracuse University's Maxwell School (rtkersh@maxwell.syr.edu). He is the author of Dreams of a More Perfect Union, as well as articles on APD in numerous journals. For helpful advice and commentary, the author thanks Brian Balogh, Dan Galvin, Jennifer Hochschild, Shelley Hurt, David Mayhew, Suzanne Mettler, Sid Milkis, Jim Morone, three anonymous Perspectives reviewers, and audience members at the APD workshop at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.

Generating Political Priority for Safe Motherhood

This paper was presented by Jeremy Shiffman on November 18, 2004 at the 38 Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference of the Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of Nigeria (SOGON) in Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria. Jeremy Shiffman, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Public Administration at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University in the United States. African Journal of Reproductive Health Vol. 8 (3) 2004: 6-10

The Management Performance of the U.S. States

The Maxwell School's Government Performance Project rated the management successes of the 50 states in several areas, such as capital management, human resources and information technology in 1998 and 2000. Variability among the states was significant. Viewing the Maxwell School data as something to be explained, we focus on political institutions, social characteristics and the economic environments in the states. We review hypotheses that predict management performance, and we test them empirically. We find that states high in social capital, states with professional legislatures, and states with vibrant entrepreneurial economies are more likely to be better managed. A state's tax burden and the governor's powers seem unrelated to the Maxwell School scores. States with a high density of good government groups tend to be poor performers, presumably because citizens join such groups hoping to improve their unsatisfactory state governments.

Contamination in Orangetown: A Mock Trial and Site Investigation Exercise

This report discusses how we developed and implemented an interactive upper division/graduate level class project based on a fictional trichloroethylene contamination incident as part of our spring-2003 semester hydrogeology curriculum at Syracuse University. The “truth” of the contamination was based on a hypothetical Visual MODFLOW and MT3D computer simulation of groundwater flow and contaminant transport. The class was divided into three consulting groups. One provided expert services to people living in a town (“Orangetown”) whose drinking water had been contaminated. The other two groups provided expert services to two fictitious manufacturing companies accused of responsibility for the contamination. The consulting groups prepared environmental assessment and contaminant characterization reports on different, fixed mock budgets. The culmination of the project was a daylong mock trial. Lawyers represented the three consulting groups (one real lawyer and two senior consulting hydrogeologists with extensive trial experience) and a jury of lay people decided the outcome. The overall exercise substantially increased the students' attention and interest in the material, as well as their examination performance in the course. Future iterations of the Orangetown Project may be integrated with courses in Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, and the Syacuse University College of Law.

Response to Review of Poor Kids in a Rich Country

Children, Youth and Environments. Vol 14, No.1 (2004) ISSN 1546-2250 Response to Review of Poor Kids in a Rich Country Timothy Smeeding Maxwell's Center for Policy Research Syracuse University Lee Rainwater Harvard University Luxembourg Income Study Citation: Smeeding, Timothy and Lee Rainwater. (2004). “Response to Review of Poor Kids in a Rich Country.” Children, Youth and Environments 14(1). We want to thank the reviewer for a cogent analysis and policy interpretation of our book. This brief response is to say that policy can indeed make a difference. Figure 1 compares child poverty in the UK and in the USA using similar poverty standards— the U.S. poverty line (about 43-45 percent of U.S. median income in 1997) with the UK poverty line (set at 60 percent of UK median income in 1997). In the United Sates we show both the official series (top line) and one that reflects the Luxembourg Income Study’s (LIS) income definition and the changes in poverty measurement recommended by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1995. Since the UK GDP per person was about 70 percent of the U.S. level in that year, these lines measure just about the same “real” level of living. 279 Figure 1. Trends in Absolute Child Poverty: UK vs. U.S., 19892002 Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; Hills, John and Holly Sutherland (2004). "Child Poverty in the UK and the Blair Government: A Progress Report." Conference on the Support of Children, Princeton University, January. Revised April, 2004. Mimeo, CASE Center, London School of Economics. In 1997, Prime Minister Blair announced his policies against child poverty; in 1999 they began to be implemented; by 2001-2002, child poverty in the UK had fallen below that in the United States measured against the same “real” resource level. Note that child poverty in both nations began to fall without the help of policy in the late 1990s owing to the strong economic growth of the period. But as we entered the 21st century, when both economies turned sour, the UK showed that policy can make a difference. The U.S. poverty decline stopped; the UK’s continues. To our reviewer and the readers 280 of CYE, we close by saying there is hope. But, it may take some time to find a leader who reads all of our books and then decides to run for President, making child poverty a key priority. The Blair government experience in the UK may give her or him some hope indeed. Timothy M. Smeeding is the Maxwell Professor of Public Policy, and Director of Maxwell's Center for Policy Research. He is also the Director of the Luxembourg Income Study (www.lisproject.org), a nonprofit research organization which he co-founded with Lee Rainwater in 1983. Professor Smeeding's research is focused on national and cross-national aspects of economic inequality, poverty, and public policy toward vulnerable groups, such as children, the aged, and the disabled. Over the next eight months he will publish three books: The Economics of an Aging Society (with Richard V. Burkhauser, Robert L. Clark, Marilyn Moon, and Joseph F. Quinn; Blackwell Publishers); Poor Kids in a Rich Nation (with Lee Rainwater; Russell Sage Foundation Press); and Public Policy and the Future of the Family, proceedings of a conference held at The Maxwell School in October 2002 (edited with Lee Rainwater, and Professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan; Russell Sage Foundation Press). Additional unpublished papers and a complete curriculum vitae may be found on his website at http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/faculty/smeeding/ Lee Rainwater is professor of sociology emeritus and research director of the Luxembourg Income Study. His books include Poor Kids in a Rich Country: America's Children in Comparative Perspective, with Timothy M. Smeeding, Russell Sage Foundation, 2003; Income Distribution in OECD Countries, with Anthony B. Atkinson and Timothy M. Smeeding, OECD, 1995 ; Public/Private Interplay in Social Protection with Martin Rein, (eds.), M.E. Sharpe and Co., 1986; What Money Buys: Inequality and the Social Meaning of Income, New York: Basic Books, 1974; Behind Ghetto Walls: Black Families in a Federal Slum, Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company, 1970; and And the...

Response to Review of Poor Kids in a Rich Country

Children, Youth and Environments. Vol 14, No.1 (2004) ISSN 1546-2250 Response to Review of Poor Kids in a Rich Country Timothy Smeeding Maxwell's Center for Policy Research Syracuse University Lee Rainwater Harvard University Luxembourg Income Study Citation: Smeeding, Timothy and Lee Rainwater. (2004). “Response to Review of Poor Kids in a Rich Country.” Children, Youth and Environments 14(1). Retrieved [date] from http://colorado.edu/journals/cye. We want to thank the reviewer for a cogent analysis and policy interpretation of our book. This brief response is to say that policy can indeed make a difference. Figure 1 compares child poverty in the UK and in the USA using similar poverty standards— the U.S. poverty line (about 43-45 percent of U.S. median income in 1997) with the UK poverty line (set at 60 percent of UK median income in 1997). In the United Sates we show both the official series (top line) and one that reflects the Luxembourg Income Study’s (LIS) income definition and the changes in poverty measurement recommended by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1995. Since the UK GDP per person was about 70 percent of the U.S. level in that year, these lines measure just about the same “real” level of living. 313 Figure 1. Trends in Absolute Child Poverty: UK vs. U.S., 1989-2002 Sources: U.S. Census Bureau; Hills, John and Holly Sutherland (2004). "Child Poverty in the UK and the Blair Government: A Progress Report." Conference on the Support of Children, Princeton University, January. Revised April, 2004. Mimeo, CASE Center, London School of Economics. In 1997, Prime Minister Blair announced his policies against child poverty; in 1999 they began to be implemented; by 2001-2002, child poverty in the UK had fallen below that in the United States measured against the same “real” resource level. Note that child poverty in both nations began to fall without the help of policy in the late 1990s owing to the strong economic growth of the period. But as we entered the 21st century, when both economies turned sour, the UK showed that policy can make a difference. The U.S. poverty decline stopped; the UK’s continues. To our reviewer and the readers of CYE, we close by saying there is hope. But, it may 314 take some time to find a leader who reads all of our books and then decides to run for President, making child poverty a key priority. The Blair government experience in the UK may give her or him some hope indeed. Timothy M. Smeeding is the Maxwell Professor of Public Policy, and Director of Maxwell's Center for Policy Research. He is also the Director of the Luxembourg Income Study (www.lisproject.org), a nonprofit research organization which he co-founded with Lee Rainwater in 1983. Professor Smeeding's research is focused on national and cross-national aspects of economic inequality, poverty, and public policy toward vulnerable groups, such as children, the aged, and the disabled. Over the next eight months he will publish three books: The Economics of an Aging Society (with Richard V. Burkhauser, Robert L. Clark, Marilyn Moon, and Joseph F. Quinn; Blackwell Publishers); Poor Kids in a Rich Nation (with Lee Rainwater; Russell Sage Foundation Press); and Public Policy and the Future of the Family, proceedings of a conference held at The Maxwell School in October 2002 (edited with Lee Rainwater, and Professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan; Russell Sage Foundation Press). Additional unpublished papers and a complete curriculum vitae may be found on his website at http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/faculty/smeeding/ Lee Rainwater is professor of sociology emeritus and research director of the Luxembourg Income Study. His books include Poor Kids in a Rich Country: America's Children in Comparative Perspective, with Timothy M. Smeeding, Russell Sage Foundation, 2003; Income Distribution in OECD Countries, with Anthony B. Atkinson and Timothy M. Smeeding, OECD, 1995 ; Public/Private Interplay in Social Protection with Martin Rein, (eds.), M.E. Sharpe and Co., 1986; What Money Buys: Inequality and the Social Meaning of Income, New York: Basic Books, 1974; Behind Ghetto Walls: Black Families in a Federal...

Managing intensive student consulting capstone projects: The Maxwell school experience

Managing intensive student consulting capstone projects: The Maxwell school experience

The Quality of Management and Government Performance: An Empirical Analysis of the American States

Government performance is an enduring concern for students of public management, public administration, and political science. Government's administrative arrangements and managerial behavior can profoundly influence programmatic content, activities, and outcomes; therefore, considering public management's effects is necessary for a true understanding of public policy and government performance. This article uses data from the Maxwell School's Government Performance Project to examine the relationship between state governments’ managerial capacity and a measure of government performance (specifically, state policy priorities). We find that state management capacity has direct effects on state policy commitments: States possessing higher levels of management capacity tend to favor programmatic areas that distribute societal benefits widely (that is, collective benefits) as opposed to narrowly (that is, particularized benefits). Our analysis demonstrates that public interest group activity, government ideology, and citizen ideology each have significant, predictable effects on state policy commitments. Thus, our findings place managerial capacity alongside other more commonly studied state characteristics as an important influence on government activities.