To view previously announced funding opportunities, visit the RDO website. Items of interest to our college are highlighted in yellow.

A new study demonstrates just how important bureaucracy and paperwork really are. - By Ray Fisman - Slate Magazine

Bureaucracy and Management really do matter: Slate Magazine

We teach about management as part of the public policy curriculum, whether or not we work in a public administration program. And all of us who teach--or learn--in a university setting know about the amount of "bureaucracy" it takes to get reimbursed, untangle a payroll problem, or use a motor pool vehicle. Students nearly always encounter problems with the cashier, registrar, and library at some point in their lives. And we all have--or know people who have--horror stories about "bureaucracy." Mostly, we associate these stories with the public sector; when complaining about the private sector, we often just complain about an industry sector--airlines, cable TV, cell phone carriers--rather than about the inherently bureaucratic nature of these firms.

But what if we didn't have management? This article addresses this question. It applies to the private sector, but is relevant to the public sector as well. Here in North Carolina, the crime lab in the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) has run afoul of the law and of good management. Would improved management have made SBI better, much as it did the Indian textile firms in this article? I imagine it would.

New Journal: Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences (JESS)

From the STEP newsletter today:

AESS Announces Launch of New Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences 


We are pleased to announce the launch of the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences (JESS), the official publication of the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS). The Journal will be issued quarterly in electronic and hard copy by Springer Publications beginning in early 2011. We invite you, the AESS members, to submit articles for the Journal and welcome feedback for future issues.

Global Issues Forum, NCSU: Climate Change and Disaster

I will be speaking at this event on October 19, and invite folks in the Triangle to join us in this interesting event.

GLOBAL ISSUES SEMINAR SERIES

Fall 2010

E n e r g y, E n v i r o nme n t & Gl o b a l

Economics

Withers Auditorium 232A, 7:00-8:30 PM

“NATURAL DISASTERS AND GLOBAL

CLIMATE CHANGE”

OCTOBER 19, 2010

This panel will address key policy issues surrounding
global climate change, the impact of natural disasters
on societies, and factors that increase vulnerability to
the effects of these meteorological events.

Job Posting--UC Santa Barbara--Environmental Institutions

I received this announcement from the Science, Technology and Environmental Politics (STEP) section of the APSA. Please share with anyone who may be interested!

Faculty Position – Environmental Economics, Politics, and Empirics
Bren School of Environmental Science & Management
University of California, Santa Barbara

As journalism changes, so must you - USATODAY.com

As journalism changes, so must you - USATODAY.com

Systems accidents, blaming, and policy

As a student of disasters in the policy process, I am interested in what Charles Perrow has called "normal accidents." Normal accidents are events--also known as system accidents--that occur when complex systems interact in unusual ways. In the New York Times today we learn that a number of pre-flight errors contributed to the crash of Continental Connection (that is, Colgan Air) flight 3407 on approach to Buffalo last February.

Perhaps a better example of a system accident was the 2000 crash of a Concorde flight. At least one of the plane's engines failed catastrophically on takeoff from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, whereupon the plane failed to gain altitude and crashed into a hotel, killing all aboard and several on the ground. Continental Airlines and five individuals are on trial in France on manslaughter charges; the French authorities determined that the proximate cause of the crash was a strip of metal that had fallen off a Continental Airlines DC-10 that had departed just before the Concorde took off. The claim is that the metal strip shed by the DC-10 damaged the tires on the landing gear of the Concorde, causing a large chunk of rubber to strike the wing, thereby rupturing the fuel tank. But, as the BBC noted this morning, there were other factors involved, including the apparent fact that the fuel tanks were filled higher than recommended, thereby allowing the rubber to create a shock wave in the full tank, compounding damage and leading to the rupture and fire.

What is interesting about these cases is the fundamental question of blame attribution? Whose fault are these accidents? In the Colgan case, arguments have been made that the pilot showed poor skills, the co-pilot had a cold and was inattentive due to lack of sleep, and that, in the end, the pilot failed to fully increase power before lifting the nose of the plane, thereby precipitating a stall that led to loss of control and the crash. But the Times story suggests other causes, including conflicting data being entered into the plane's computers. In the Concorde case, should a piece of debris have been able to so badly damage the plane's tires? Should a piece of rubber be able to damage the wing? Should the fuel tank have been designed to be so vulnerable to shock?

These seem like highly technical arguments, but they really come down to different models of blame attribution that Deborah Stone has written about. And such blame attribution can matter in regulation, and in the investigation and prosecution of those considered responsible.

Reviews of Deborah Stone's Policy Paradox

One of the best ways to truly understand a complex book is to read the book reviews to see what struck reviewers as the most important theme of the book. With that in mind, I was able to find reviews of Deborah Stone's Policy Paradox,  through JSTOR--one of the finest databases for peer-reviewed research across many disciplines. These links will take you directly to the reviews if you are viewing this on a campus that subscribes to JSTOR, or if you can authenticate your student status.


B. Guy Peters's review, in the American Political Science Review (1989): http://www.jstor.org/stable/1956482


Janice Thomas's review in Public Administration Review (1989): http://www.jstor.org/stable/976580

For Gates’s Aides, No More Fatigues at Work - NYTimes.com

This article in the New York Times shows how symbolic acts--like deciding what sort of uniforms military officers should wear at the Pentagon--can seem "merely" symbolic, but have real substantive policy effects.

8 Qualities of Powerful Writing - Stepcase Lifehack

Students in my courses know that I am pretty strict about writing. With that in mind, I will post links to interesting articles about writing, the writing process, and the like. Here's an interesting article that I find a bit abstract, but it does contain some really important ideas--including the idea that writing should be driven by one's passion for the subject and by a goal.

8 Qualities of Powerful Writing - Stepcase Lifehack