Obama rides the razor's edge. His campaign was a valiant effort to "end politics as usual" and the "failed policies of the past." These seemed more than platitudes under the careful rhetorical style and formulation Obama crafted. But the stimulus package-politics is very much more of the same, now with gutting of investments in education and related infrastructure for future generations. Peter Defazio (House D-, OR) has voted against the bill because of the concessions made to Republicans for more tax cuts. Folks can find his comments to the House of Reps online.
Public administrators, like Obama himself, have little to embrace among the signals being sent now from DC. (Obama signs the stimulus bill package today in Colorado.) PA writers should begin paying close attention to the substantive distinctions between Obama and the failed policies he has disparaged. Tax cutting means more neo-liberal divestment in the civic sphere. Extreme rendition, on any timeline (Obama makes clear he intends retaining the program but with restorations of habeas) enjoins public administrators to a gauntlet for world policing that will bind policy discourse everywhere to the failed policies of the past and brutal fictions into the future. Obama's black-ness will be used as symbolic indication of the "end of race" mantra that seeps through every civic channel in the US.
I would very much like hearing from among peers/colleagues their thoughts about what rhetorical signals from Obama that PA theorists should now focus upon; what sub-surface structures--semiotic and otherwise--are likely to gain "traction" as Obama wends further into these 100 days.
Matthew Witt is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration in the College of Business and Public Management, University of LaVerne.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
DSJ and the election
The ASPA section Democracy and Social Justice was created in response to a regressive national political and economic environment. There are no easy solutions to the current situation and the regressive impulses that created it may well visit us again in the future.
I came of age during the turbulent 1960s, a time when it seemed that movement toward a progressive America might be sustainable. It wasn't, then, and I am skeptical about the prospects today. Nevertheless, as I watched the faces of the people in Grant Park in Chicago on television during Barack Obama's remarkable speech on election night, it seemed to me a new America might be revealing itself, a cosmopolitan, tolerant place not as easily susceptible to appeals to anti-intellectualism, violence, racism, environmental destruction, and social inequality.
Whether or not the demographics of age and diversity are sufficient to sustain this potential new America remains to be seen. Even so, in public administration and in DSJ we may have in hand a remarkable opportunity to promote long-lasting movement in ideas and attitudes. As I wrote recently in Making a Difference: Progressive Values in Public Administration (2008, p. 124), "There is little any one of us can do to change the basic characteristics of our political and economic surroundings as a whole. However, in our particular corner of society, the study and practice of professional public service, those with a passion for change can make a difference both in how things are done and in how people think about regressive and progressive values."
Richard Box is a professor at University of Nebraska at Omaha and current chairperson of DSJ.
I came of age during the turbulent 1960s, a time when it seemed that movement toward a progressive America might be sustainable. It wasn't, then, and I am skeptical about the prospects today. Nevertheless, as I watched the faces of the people in Grant Park in Chicago on television during Barack Obama's remarkable speech on election night, it seemed to me a new America might be revealing itself, a cosmopolitan, tolerant place not as easily susceptible to appeals to anti-intellectualism, violence, racism, environmental destruction, and social inequality.
Whether or not the demographics of age and diversity are sufficient to sustain this potential new America remains to be seen. Even so, in public administration and in DSJ we may have in hand a remarkable opportunity to promote long-lasting movement in ideas and attitudes. As I wrote recently in Making a Difference: Progressive Values in Public Administration (2008, p. 124), "There is little any one of us can do to change the basic characteristics of our political and economic surroundings as a whole. However, in our particular corner of society, the study and practice of professional public service, those with a passion for change can make a difference both in how things are done and in how people think about regressive and progressive values."
Richard Box is a professor at University of Nebraska at Omaha and current chairperson of DSJ.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Threats to Democracy
In his brief, but nicely crafted A Letter to America (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008), David Boren (former U.S. Democratic Senator from Oklahoma; current President, University of Oklahoma) cites a number of threats to democracy that he argues we are increasingly incapable of repelling. None of what Boren describes is new, but he weaves familiar issues together to make a compelling case for the critical need to change so we can reclaim and protect our democracy.
Let me give you a sense of Boren’s argument with some of his better quotes.
Boren cites the following threats to democracy:
Americans losing faith in the nation’s future: “It is ironic, given the current debate about immigration, that first-generation immigrants are far more likely to be optimistic about America and better lives for their children than are the rest of us.” (p. 13) (Although that may be less true in our current economy.)
Partisanship that elevates partisan advantage above the national interest (pp. 43+)
Special interests (enough said)
Disappearing middle class: Boren quotes Justice Louis Brandeis: “You can have a democracy and a society sharply divided between the rich and the poor, but you cannot have both for very long.” (p. 79)
Lack of seriousness: wasting time on “frivolous discussions about celebrity, sports, entertainment, and titillating gossip. None of these things will determine our future or that of our children and grandchildren.” (p. 9)
Lack of intellectual curiosity: “When confronted with alarming news, it seems we seldom ask, Why did this happen?” (p. 11)
Cynicism: “The cynicism surrounding us frightens me far more than outrage would. . . . Cynicism … undermines the foundations of our political system by leaving people with a sense that they cannot make a difference by getting involved. It is when we stop trying that both our system and our individual liberties are put at great risk.” (p. 14)
Then Boren argues that we are becoming “incapable of protecting our rights and democratic institutions, because we do not even know our own history. Americans are not educated about the ideas and events that led to the writing of our Constitution or about what generations have done to preserve it. . . . Those who do not even understand their rights will hardly be able to defend them.” (p. 9) He quotes a 2002 speech by Bruce Cole, then chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, “A nation that does not know why it exists or what it stands for cannot be expected to long endure . . . We cannot expect that a nation which has lost its memory will keep its vision.” (p. 15, emphasis added)
So what are the solutions? We need to make sure that our children and our citizens understand our nation’s history and values—our “national story”. “If we forget it, we lose our vision, our identity, our national soul. Our national story unifies us, strengthens us, and inspires us.” (pp. 88-89) A quote from Thomas Jefferson further makes the point: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be.” (p. 91) Obviously Boren is talking about civic literacy and, as the current president of the University of Oklahoma, calls on higher education to do their part.
I liked the book because it massaged a number of my biases about the lack of civic education, civic literacy (or even a hunger for it), and civic involvement. I was disappointed in the book because it called me to action but didn’t help me identify what I could do to make the needed change happen.
My husband, Jack White, wrote this about the book: “Frankly, I don’t know how we can transform the special interest dominated political system we’ve allowed to develop. But along with David Boren I’m convinced we absolutely have to find a way. And I am convinced that finding a way and effecting the transformation will require the involvement and commitment of many of us cynics who all too often are sitting on the sidelines.” I agree.
Mary Hamilton is the former Executive Director for ASPA and is currently Senior Executive in Residence at the School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska, Omaha.
Let me give you a sense of Boren’s argument with some of his better quotes.
Boren cites the following threats to democracy:
Americans losing faith in the nation’s future: “It is ironic, given the current debate about immigration, that first-generation immigrants are far more likely to be optimistic about America and better lives for their children than are the rest of us.” (p. 13) (Although that may be less true in our current economy.)
Partisanship that elevates partisan advantage above the national interest (pp. 43+)
Special interests (enough said)
Disappearing middle class: Boren quotes Justice Louis Brandeis: “You can have a democracy and a society sharply divided between the rich and the poor, but you cannot have both for very long.” (p. 79)
Lack of seriousness: wasting time on “frivolous discussions about celebrity, sports, entertainment, and titillating gossip. None of these things will determine our future or that of our children and grandchildren.” (p. 9)
Lack of intellectual curiosity: “When confronted with alarming news, it seems we seldom ask, Why did this happen?” (p. 11)
Cynicism: “The cynicism surrounding us frightens me far more than outrage would. . . . Cynicism … undermines the foundations of our political system by leaving people with a sense that they cannot make a difference by getting involved. It is when we stop trying that both our system and our individual liberties are put at great risk.” (p. 14)
Then Boren argues that we are becoming “incapable of protecting our rights and democratic institutions, because we do not even know our own history. Americans are not educated about the ideas and events that led to the writing of our Constitution or about what generations have done to preserve it. . . . Those who do not even understand their rights will hardly be able to defend them.” (p. 9) He quotes a 2002 speech by Bruce Cole, then chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, “A nation that does not know why it exists or what it stands for cannot be expected to long endure . . . We cannot expect that a nation which has lost its memory will keep its vision.” (p. 15, emphasis added)
So what are the solutions? We need to make sure that our children and our citizens understand our nation’s history and values—our “national story”. “If we forget it, we lose our vision, our identity, our national soul. Our national story unifies us, strengthens us, and inspires us.” (pp. 88-89) A quote from Thomas Jefferson further makes the point: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be.” (p. 91) Obviously Boren is talking about civic literacy and, as the current president of the University of Oklahoma, calls on higher education to do their part.
I liked the book because it massaged a number of my biases about the lack of civic education, civic literacy (or even a hunger for it), and civic involvement. I was disappointed in the book because it called me to action but didn’t help me identify what I could do to make the needed change happen.
My husband, Jack White, wrote this about the book: “Frankly, I don’t know how we can transform the special interest dominated political system we’ve allowed to develop. But along with David Boren I’m convinced we absolutely have to find a way. And I am convinced that finding a way and effecting the transformation will require the involvement and commitment of many of us cynics who all too often are sitting on the sidelines.” I agree.
Mary Hamilton is the former Executive Director for ASPA and is currently Senior Executive in Residence at the School of Public Administration, University of Nebraska, Omaha.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Social Justice and the Financial Crisis
Social justice comes in many forms – strict equality; affirmative action; proportionality; immediate; delayed; promised – to name a few. In many respects, social justice and even democracy are at odds with free-market economics and capitalism.
How then, does the current economic crisis look through a social justice lens? And does such a lens have any applicability to the crisis or its proposed solution?
The current U.S. economic crisis is essentially the result of the traditional “boom and bust” economic cycle. In the ‘90s and early 2000s the U.S. experienced the boom and bust of the “dot com” cycle. Huge amounts were invested (mostly speculatively) in firms where the “there” was not really there. Not surprisingly, the nakedness of the emperor was soon discovered and investors lost their shirts. (Were the investors, perhaps, trying to emulate the emperor?) There was no cry for a bail out at the time. Instead, the market was seen as “adjusting” itself.
Today’s crisis is essentially a credit crisis played out mostly in the housing market. Again, houses were priced well beyond their actual value and almost every party to the transaction ignored this fact. The real estate agents knew 6% of $500,000 was more than 6% of $300,000; the appraisers looked at prices rather than value (otherwise no one would use their services anymore); lenders created hugely risky loans to make money today with no thought of tomorrow; borrowers believed that the market would continue to rise and they would be able to make enough to pay the delayed cost of the house – or sell it at a profit. Insurers went along with the euphoria. After some time, consumers, lenders, and others realized that price and value were not aligned. Buyers realized they could not pay for the delayed cost of the house – nor sell it at a profit – so they walked away. Lenders now owned over-priced housing and owed their investors and/or the insurance companies huge sums with no foreseeable source for repayment. As a result, large and venerable corporations (with huge numbers of wealthy and less wealthy investors) joined the house buyers in the decision to just walk away. For individuals and fictitious individuals, bankruptcy was the solution. Except now there is a cry for a bail out. The market is not adjusting – it is in imminent danger of collapse.
How does social justice fit into this picture? The proposed bail out (at this writing) is essentially to purchase the bad debt of the lenders and insurance companies. This is proposed on the theory that if the market can be stabilized, it will once again serve as that “invisible hand” that brings justice and fairness to all. (I am disregarding the sweeping and unreviewable powers to be granted to the Secretary of Treasury here.) The “justice” of this proposal is that it is more important to stabilize the overall economy than to let the natural consequences of bad decisions play themselves out. Good people make bad decisions, but we must protect the system and the investors from those bad decisions. (I am also ignoring the economic theory that credit is not inexhaustible and that government borrowing on the scale of $700 billion will almost certainly “use up” any slack in the credit market making it ever more difficult for anyone to borrow – including the government.)
Counter-proposals appeared almost as soon as the original proposal was made. Among the most common features of these counter-proposals are the following: no corporate bail out without some form of limit on executive compensation – especially for executives leaving the bailed out firms; no corporate bail out without some form of relief for the home buyers facing foreclosure; no corporate bailout without some form of Congressional oversight; no bailout unless the funds are provided as loans at a market interest rate (so U.S. taxpayers eventually are “reimbursed” with a “profit”) or to purchase an ownership interest in the corporations; no bail out without an expectation of increased government regulation. The “justice” of these proposals is largely punitive – no “excessive” compensation for individuals deemed to have been party to the crisis; increased regulation or Congressional oversight; pay for corporate mistakes with market interest rates or reduction of ownership. Only the proposal to provide some form of relief to home buyers facing foreclosure (or “bad” mortgages, in some versions) extends relief past the impacted corporations, and to the extent relief is just, provide comparable treatment to all parties to the bad decision-making process.
While about 68% of U.S. households owned their home in 2007, only 47% of African-American households owned homes and 50% of Hispanic households owned homes. 75% of white, non-Hispanic households owned homes. Providing relief to large corporations (and their stock holders) and/or to home buyers who made very bad deals will provide an advantage to the “haves” of our society and provide nothing to the “have-nots.”
Strict equality would call for doing nothing – let those who make bad decisions live with the consequences. “Affirmative action” would provide every U.S. resident with some housing and/or credit relief – and increase the price of the bailout considerably. The current proposal and the counter proposals seem to offer proportionate justice – with corporations and their investors receiving the largest portion; some home buyers receiving a reduced amount; and the majority of U.S. residents, many of whom own homes, receiving nothing (unless, of course, you count the tax bill we, our children and at least our grandchildren will be paying). And in the cruelest of ironies, the poor and working poor will be worse off since marginal home buyers will have been “bailed out” and therefore have increased wealth (ownership) while those at the bottom of the income scale will have no ownership and a reduced chance of ever owning since “we won’t make that mistake again.”
James Nordin, D.P.A. is half of a Hispanic/white household that owns a home.
How then, does the current economic crisis look through a social justice lens? And does such a lens have any applicability to the crisis or its proposed solution?
The current U.S. economic crisis is essentially the result of the traditional “boom and bust” economic cycle. In the ‘90s and early 2000s the U.S. experienced the boom and bust of the “dot com” cycle. Huge amounts were invested (mostly speculatively) in firms where the “there” was not really there. Not surprisingly, the nakedness of the emperor was soon discovered and investors lost their shirts. (Were the investors, perhaps, trying to emulate the emperor?) There was no cry for a bail out at the time. Instead, the market was seen as “adjusting” itself.
Today’s crisis is essentially a credit crisis played out mostly in the housing market. Again, houses were priced well beyond their actual value and almost every party to the transaction ignored this fact. The real estate agents knew 6% of $500,000 was more than 6% of $300,000; the appraisers looked at prices rather than value (otherwise no one would use their services anymore); lenders created hugely risky loans to make money today with no thought of tomorrow; borrowers believed that the market would continue to rise and they would be able to make enough to pay the delayed cost of the house – or sell it at a profit. Insurers went along with the euphoria. After some time, consumers, lenders, and others realized that price and value were not aligned. Buyers realized they could not pay for the delayed cost of the house – nor sell it at a profit – so they walked away. Lenders now owned over-priced housing and owed their investors and/or the insurance companies huge sums with no foreseeable source for repayment. As a result, large and venerable corporations (with huge numbers of wealthy and less wealthy investors) joined the house buyers in the decision to just walk away. For individuals and fictitious individuals, bankruptcy was the solution. Except now there is a cry for a bail out. The market is not adjusting – it is in imminent danger of collapse.
How does social justice fit into this picture? The proposed bail out (at this writing) is essentially to purchase the bad debt of the lenders and insurance companies. This is proposed on the theory that if the market can be stabilized, it will once again serve as that “invisible hand” that brings justice and fairness to all. (I am disregarding the sweeping and unreviewable powers to be granted to the Secretary of Treasury here.) The “justice” of this proposal is that it is more important to stabilize the overall economy than to let the natural consequences of bad decisions play themselves out. Good people make bad decisions, but we must protect the system and the investors from those bad decisions. (I am also ignoring the economic theory that credit is not inexhaustible and that government borrowing on the scale of $700 billion will almost certainly “use up” any slack in the credit market making it ever more difficult for anyone to borrow – including the government.)
Counter-proposals appeared almost as soon as the original proposal was made. Among the most common features of these counter-proposals are the following: no corporate bail out without some form of limit on executive compensation – especially for executives leaving the bailed out firms; no corporate bail out without some form of relief for the home buyers facing foreclosure; no corporate bailout without some form of Congressional oversight; no bailout unless the funds are provided as loans at a market interest rate (so U.S. taxpayers eventually are “reimbursed” with a “profit”) or to purchase an ownership interest in the corporations; no bail out without an expectation of increased government regulation. The “justice” of these proposals is largely punitive – no “excessive” compensation for individuals deemed to have been party to the crisis; increased regulation or Congressional oversight; pay for corporate mistakes with market interest rates or reduction of ownership. Only the proposal to provide some form of relief to home buyers facing foreclosure (or “bad” mortgages, in some versions) extends relief past the impacted corporations, and to the extent relief is just, provide comparable treatment to all parties to the bad decision-making process.
While about 68% of U.S. households owned their home in 2007, only 47% of African-American households owned homes and 50% of Hispanic households owned homes. 75% of white, non-Hispanic households owned homes. Providing relief to large corporations (and their stock holders) and/or to home buyers who made very bad deals will provide an advantage to the “haves” of our society and provide nothing to the “have-nots.”
Strict equality would call for doing nothing – let those who make bad decisions live with the consequences. “Affirmative action” would provide every U.S. resident with some housing and/or credit relief – and increase the price of the bailout considerably. The current proposal and the counter proposals seem to offer proportionate justice – with corporations and their investors receiving the largest portion; some home buyers receiving a reduced amount; and the majority of U.S. residents, many of whom own homes, receiving nothing (unless, of course, you count the tax bill we, our children and at least our grandchildren will be paying). And in the cruelest of ironies, the poor and working poor will be worse off since marginal home buyers will have been “bailed out” and therefore have increased wealth (ownership) while those at the bottom of the income scale will have no ownership and a reduced chance of ever owning since “we won’t make that mistake again.”
James Nordin, D.P.A. is half of a Hispanic/white household that owns a home.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Civil Disobedience and the War on Drugs
Recently, writers of the HBO show The Wire wrote a Viewpoint column in Time magazine in which they make an interesting - and controversial - argument for the use of civil disobedience in the war on drugs. The television show, which came to an end of its five season run in March, is set in Baltimore and explores the nature of inner-city collapse from multiple sides.
Their conclusions:
As one might imagine, most reactions to the Viewpoint article were impassioned objection, and the writers themselves were accused of seditious behavior. What all these objections had in common, however, was the assumption that the legal system works. That assumption, in my view, is the fatal flaw in objectors' logic. There is altogether too much evidence suggesting that justice is not blind; that race and economic class are strong predictors of trial outcome; and that far too many individuals have been incarcerated on death row only to be acquitted by DNA or other new, sophisticated techiniques for the analysis of evidence.
A more global argument about substance use and regulation is offered by David T. Courtwright in his book Forces of Habit (Harvard, 2001). Courtwright describes how merchants and colonial planters expanded world supply of substances like tobacco, caffeine, opium, cannabis, and coca, driving down prices and effectively democratizing drug consumption. Over the years, this policy of expansive supply has given way to (futile?) policies of restriction and prohibition, while economic and social considerations have molded these policies to leave some substances (alcohol, tobacco, caffeine) readily accessible while others are forbidden altogether, even when there is evidence of medical usefulness (cannabis and opiates in the case of pain management).
I think the writers of The Wire have made an important statement in the service of reframing the question of substance use, abuse, regulation and restriction. As my father, a military veteran and logistician, likes to observe: "Having lost sight of our objectives, we've redoubled our efforts." What are the objectives of the war on drugs? Are they achieveable - or even desirable - in a democratic state? How do we square our stated objectives with the outcomes that create distorted markets and lucrative incentives too alluring to refuse? And, finally, do we have the political fortitude to revisit the question, challenge our assumptions, and acknowledge, as did Thomas Paine, that our long habit of not thinking a thing wrong has transferred upon it the invincibility of right.
Posted by Lisa Zanetti
Their conclusions:
What the drugs themselves have not destroyed, the warfare against them has. And what once began, perhaps, as a battle against dangerous substances long ago transformed itself into a venal war on our underclass. Since declaring war on drugs nearly 40 years ago, we've been demonizing our most desperate citizens, isolating and incarcerating them and otherwise denying them a role in the American collective. All to no purpose. The prison population doubles and doubles again; the drugs remain.Their proposal: a call for civil disobedience in the form of jury nullification. Quoting Thomas Paine, who observed that "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right," the writers declare:
If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will - to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun's manifesto against the death penalty - no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.The writers acknowledge that their small actions will not solve the drug problem, will not heal America's civic wounds, do not address the better use of resources, and do not generate new economies in neighborhoods where the only remaining economic force is the illegal drug trade. But they draw strength for their position in American colonial history, where jury nullification represented a refusal to be manipulated or railroaded by the Crown. They cite the 1735 trial of John Peter Zenger, a newspaper editor charged with sedition and libel against William Cosby, Governor of New York Colony. Zenger's defense attorney, Andrew Hamilton, won the case not by defending his client's innocence, but by arguing that the law itself was wrong, and that Zenger's writings were not libel because they were based on fact. As the writers observe, "[A]bsent a government capable of repairing injustices, it [jury nullification] is legitimate protest."
As one might imagine, most reactions to the Viewpoint article were impassioned objection, and the writers themselves were accused of seditious behavior. What all these objections had in common, however, was the assumption that the legal system works. That assumption, in my view, is the fatal flaw in objectors' logic. There is altogether too much evidence suggesting that justice is not blind; that race and economic class are strong predictors of trial outcome; and that far too many individuals have been incarcerated on death row only to be acquitted by DNA or other new, sophisticated techiniques for the analysis of evidence.
A more global argument about substance use and regulation is offered by David T. Courtwright in his book Forces of Habit (Harvard, 2001). Courtwright describes how merchants and colonial planters expanded world supply of substances like tobacco, caffeine, opium, cannabis, and coca, driving down prices and effectively democratizing drug consumption. Over the years, this policy of expansive supply has given way to (futile?) policies of restriction and prohibition, while economic and social considerations have molded these policies to leave some substances (alcohol, tobacco, caffeine) readily accessible while others are forbidden altogether, even when there is evidence of medical usefulness (cannabis and opiates in the case of pain management).
I think the writers of The Wire have made an important statement in the service of reframing the question of substance use, abuse, regulation and restriction. As my father, a military veteran and logistician, likes to observe: "Having lost sight of our objectives, we've redoubled our efforts." What are the objectives of the war on drugs? Are they achieveable - or even desirable - in a democratic state? How do we square our stated objectives with the outcomes that create distorted markets and lucrative incentives too alluring to refuse? And, finally, do we have the political fortitude to revisit the question, challenge our assumptions, and acknowledge, as did Thomas Paine, that our long habit of not thinking a thing wrong has transferred upon it the invincibility of right.
Posted by Lisa Zanetti
Friday, April 4, 2008
IBM's challenges for the public sector
I recently received an email from the IBM Center for the Business of Government http://www.businessofgovernment.org/ touting its "reputation for a deep understanding of public management issues" and its ten year history of success.
The email also flagged the issues the Center forsees in the upcoming decade:
The email also flagged the issues the Center forsees in the upcoming decade:
Now, I don't take issue with these challenges, but I was disappointed (while not necessarily surprised) not to see anything on social justice issues, which leads me to wonder what it will take for these issues to re-take the forefront of the national agenda (I note with some irony that I write this on the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.).
- Fiscal Sanity: reform out-dated federal retirement and healthcare programs to reflect current economic and budgetary considerations.
- Crisis of Competence: decisions must be made to ensure that public servants in key jobs have needed experience and training as their work becomes more technical and service-oriented.
- Information Overload: develop government-wide as well as mission-specific, information and analytic functions to extract the knowledge needed to created strategy-based solutions.
- Governing Without Boundaries: turn to non-hierarchical ways of doing business, often called “collaborative networks.
- E-Government Is Only the Beginning: restructure services around customers rather than agency programs, creating a new role for public managers in service delivery.
- Government by Contractors take a strategic look at contracting; decide how to manage it, the appropriate roles for all parties and the right contacting methods.
- Results Really Do Matter: transform federal department and agency cultures to create collaborative, results-oriented organizations.
- “Green” Leadership: blend public policies that encourage technology and management innovations to respond to environmental challenges and potential crisis.
- Security and Privacy in a Flat World: factor security and privacy issues into all technology decisions, capturing all possible advantages while also managing the risks.
- Expect Surprises: develop forward-looking information to set the stage for early warning about emerging threats and to make informed choices about effective government responses. (full report available at http://www.businessofgovernment.org/pdfs/10_Challenges.pdf)
I also noticed something else to look into: Oprah Winfrey (just kidding, sort of). In a sidebar article of the March 8 issue of The Economist (p. 95), I saw that the tenth-best selling book on Oprah's nonfiction list is one entitled Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning by Jonah Goldberg. I have not read this book (although I'm about to try and locate a copy) but it does bother me that a book with the title Liberal Fascism should be so popular. Has the country really gone that red (ok, more irony here)?
Posted by Lisa Zanetti
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Henry Giroux and counternarratives
Henry Giroux has been writing about, and engaging in, critical pedagogy for over 30 years, and his work - with Paulo Friere and Peter McLaren - has profoundly influenced my own teaching and research. In particular, I have been affected by his exhortation to create space for counternarratives, in the classroom and elsewhere. In a similar vein, bell hooks talks about teaching to transgress.
Today I came across an article written by Giroux for the online journal Dissident Voice (3/11/08). The article is entitled "Slouching Towards Bethlehem: the New Gilded Age and Neoliberalism's Theatre of Cruelty" and I am excerpting some of it here:
Bleak, indeed. As a new section, I suggest that we consider a panel on counternarratives for ASPA 2009, especially since so many of us feel outnumbered in our schools and universities, having to clamor in louder and louder voices against the growing Leviathan of neoliberal ideology. Read, for example, the exchange on empiricism in Administration & Society's Disputatio Sine Fine section, beginning with Larry Luton's article on "Deconstructing PA Empiricism" in July 2007.
Echoing Cam Stivers' lament in the January 2008 issue, I too feel as if I'm experiencing some strange reversion: haven't we heard all this already, and isn't it SO last century? Sadly, it appears, there is a large contingent of neoliberals and empiricists who are determined to drag the debate forward. Perhaps it's part of the ontology: a worldview anchored in competition and social darwinism means someone has to win; anything less is failure. All this indicates, to me, that the need for strong counternarratives will continue, and we should prepare ourselves for a long bout of resistance.
--posted by Lisa Zanetti
Today I came across an article written by Giroux for the online journal Dissident Voice (3/11/08). The article is entitled "Slouching Towards Bethlehem: the New Gilded Age and Neoliberalism's Theatre of Cruelty" and I am excerpting some of it here:
What is often ignored by many theorists who analyze the rise of
neoliberalism in the United States is that it is not only a system of economic power relations, but also a political project of governing and persuasion intent on producing new forms of subjectivity and particular modes of conduct....I want to begin with a theoretical insight provided by the British media theorist, Nick Couldry, who insists that “every system of cruelty requires its own theatre,” one that draws upon the rituals of everyday life in order to legitimate its norms, values, institutions, and social practices.(Nick Couldry, “Realty TV, or the Secret Theatre of Neoliberalism,” The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies (forthcoming), p. 1).
Neoliberalism represents one such a system of cruelty, one that is reproduced daily through a regime of commonsense and a narrow notion of political rationality that “reaches from the soul of the citizen-subject to educational policy to practices of empire.” (Wendy Brown, Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press,2005), p. 40)
What is new about neoliberalism in a post-9/11 world is that it has become normalized, serving as a powerful pedagogical force that shapes our lives, memories, and daily experiences, while attempting to erase everything critical and emancipatory about history, justice, solidarity, freedom, and the meaning of democracy.
Wedded to the belief that the market should be the organizing principle for all political, social, and economic decisions, neoliberalism wages an incessant attack on democracy, public institutions, public goods, and non-commodified values. Under neoliberalism everything either is for sale or is plundered for profit....
Citizenship has increasingly become a function of market values and politics has been restructured as “corporations have been increasingly freed from social control through deregulation, privatization, and other neoliberal measures.” (William K. Tabb, “Race to the Bottom?” in Stanley Aronowitz and Heather Gautney, eds. Implicating Empire: Globalization & Resistance in the 21 Century World Order (New York: Basic Books, 2003), p. 153)
Bleak, indeed. As a new section, I suggest that we consider a panel on counternarratives for ASPA 2009, especially since so many of us feel outnumbered in our schools and universities, having to clamor in louder and louder voices against the growing Leviathan of neoliberal ideology. Read, for example, the exchange on empiricism in Administration & Society's Disputatio Sine Fine section, beginning with Larry Luton's article on "Deconstructing PA Empiricism" in July 2007.
Echoing Cam Stivers' lament in the January 2008 issue, I too feel as if I'm experiencing some strange reversion: haven't we heard all this already, and isn't it SO last century? Sadly, it appears, there is a large contingent of neoliberals and empiricists who are determined to drag the debate forward. Perhaps it's part of the ontology: a worldview anchored in competition and social darwinism means someone has to win; anything less is failure. All this indicates, to me, that the need for strong counternarratives will continue, and we should prepare ourselves for a long bout of resistance.
--posted by Lisa Zanetti
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