Volume 10, No. 1, Summer 2006

On Public Policy Analysis: Reflections from the Field
Beth Walter Honadle

This essay on public policy research and analysis reflects on similarities and differences between policy analysis in government and in academia. It argues that policy analysts are not perfectionists because of the imperatives of timeliness, relevance, practicality, and accessibility. These applied scientists use frameworks, structures, systematic methods, explicit criteria, and formal theories to guide the collection and analysis of data in meaningful ways. Transparency is essential to policy analysis so that other analysts can compare results using the same procedures. It is important for policy analysts to strive for objectivity, impartiality, and freedom from prejudice because the perception of neutrality on the part of researchers is so important to the acceptance of their work. One of the realities of doing public policy analysis within the government is that researchers may not advocate publicly for their personal preferences on policy matters. A critical step in public policy analysis is ensuring that terminology communicates the intended meaning, especially when there is a mismatch between the common, everyday usage of a word and the way that academics apply that same word.

Dr. Beth Walter Honadle is Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Professor of Political Science at the University of Cincinnati. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Administration as well as Masters degrees in Economics and Public Administration from Syracuse University. Her areas of interest include public policy analysis, intergovernmental relations, workforce development, and community and economic development.

NATO and the Future of International Peacekeeping
John McCain

This piece was a speech delivered by U.S. Senator John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, on Saturday, February 4, 2006 before the 2006 Munich Conference on Security Policy. In 2000, McCain ran for the Republican nomination for President of the United States. He is a member and former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs; member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services; and ranking member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

Toward an Entrepreneurial Populism
David Wilhelm

David Wilhelm, former Chair of the Democratic National Committee, is founder and president of Woodland Venture Management, which invests in Appalachia and the Midwest.

Hawaii’s Journey Toward Energy Self-Sufficiency
Linda Lingle

Governor Linda Lingle took office on December 2, 2002, committed to bringing about a “New Beginning” for the people of Hawaii by making state government more transparent, open, and responsive. She has been a strong supporter of protecting the environment and reducing the state’s dependence on fossil fuels. This support includes signing a series of bills encouraging energy conservation and development of renewable energy sources.

The Status of Eminent Domain in Illinois: Legislation to Balance Economic Development with Property Rights
Susan Garrett

Susan Garrett is the Illinois State Senator for the 29th District, which includes several North Shore and northwest suburban communities in Cook and Lake counties. Senator Garrett has held her office since 2002; previously she was a state representative. She serves on the State Government (chair), Health and Human Services (vice-chair), Appropriations III, Education, and Transportation committees. Some of her areas of interest are governmental ethics, environmental issues, transportation, health care, and support for persons with disabilities.

A Public Program to Finance Long-Term Care
Michelle Riordan

Michelle Riordan is a health policy analyst in Wallingford, Connecticut. She is a 2006 Master of Public Policy graduate of the Harris School, and she holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Boston College.

Strategic Maneuvering through Encirclement: A U.S. Response to Sino Expansion
Margaret Temalou Innocent

Despite China’s limited air and sea defense capabilities and inadequate amphibious sealift capacity, China’s area-denial capabilities continue to expand at an unprecedented pace.1 Before China engages in greater peripheral expansion and usurps stronger diplomatic leverage over its weaker East Asian neighbors, the United States must implement a military policy of containment around the Chinese mainland and build stronger bilateral security coalitions with nations in the Asia-Pacific region. China’s twenty years of unparalleled economic growth have provided the financial resources necessary to support its rapid military transformation. Therefore, strategic maneuvering through encirclement would be best applied now, while the United States possesses the qualitatively superior armed force structure necessary to implement containment and before China attains a position of military preeminence in Asia.

Margarette Malou Innocent is an immigration caseworker in Fremont, California. She is a 2006 Master of Arts graduate in international relations from the University of Chicago, and she holds duel B.A. degrees in Political Science and Mass Communications from the University of California, Berkeley.

The Role of Japan in Asia’s Future
Herbert London

Herbert I. London is President of the Hudson Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank. He is Professor Emeritus and the former John M. Olin Professor of Humanities at New York University. Dr. London is a noted social critic whose work has appeared in major U.S. newspapers and journals. He is also the author of "Decade of Denial" (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2001).

State Insurance Regulation as an Impediment to Comprehensive Health Care Reform
Carl F. Ameringer

Members of Congress and the Bush administration have backed several proposals in recent months to reform the health care industry. These include health savings accounts, association health plans, and related initiatives. Such initiatives seek to overcome state insurance regulation and other barriers to a free market for health care services. While these proposals should, if enacted, stimulate competition, they will not, by themselves, moderate rising costs or significantly reduce the number of uninsured individuals in the United States. For that to happen, political leaders must pursue more comprehensive and targeted reforms unimpeded by state mandates or other forms of specialinterest legislation.

Carl F. Ameringer is an Associate Professor of Public administration at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. He is the current chair of the Health Education Section of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). Ameringer is the author of "State Medical Boards and the Politics of Public Protection" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) and the forthcoming book, "The Health Care Conundrum: Professionalism, Capitalism, and the Uninsured" (California/Milbank Series on Health and the Public). He holds a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and a Ph.D. in political science from the Johns Hopkins University.

How Can Positive Research Findings Help a Policy Weakling?
James S. Catterall

This essay describes circumstances under which social research may become relevant in social policy-making. We pay particular attention to interests in weak organizational positions, possessing little direct power to promote their welfare. Arts and music education in the public schools provide cases in point. The essay considers what happens as usable knowledge enters the policy arena. Our conception is that usable knowledge enters an essentially political process, enhancing the power of political actors wanting rationales and support for their positions and issues, while decreasing the power of others. The issue position and power of the political actor often lead to the need to form coalitions or make other agreements in order to gain winning votes. This is especially true for the "policy weakling", the interest that seldom alone commands sufficient votes on a policy board to prevail.

James S. Catterall is a Professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. His interests include policy analysis in arts and culture and research on the cognitive and emotional effects of arts education programs.

Enrollment Levels in Institutions of Higher Education: Are State Lotteries Making a Difference in the American States?
Rodney E. Stanley and P. Edward French

The academic literature concerning the impact of state lotteries on education has dealt primarily with issues of funding. Absent from the literature are studies measuring college enrollment numbers before and after the adoption of a state lottery. This study attempts to fill a void in the literature regarding the relationship between lotteries and higher education by answering the following question: Are state-operated lotteries increasing the number of students enrolled in institutions of higher learning in the United States? Pooled time series crosssectional regression analysis is the methodological technique used to test the data in this research project. This study suggests that state-operated lotteries have not had the impact on enrollments in institutions of higher education that many practitioners and scholars originally anticipated.

Rodney E. Stanley is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration in the Institute of Government at Tennessee State University. His research interests include education policy, public budgeting, and research methods for public administration. P. Edward French is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Public and Nonprofit Administration at The University of Memphis where he teaches classes in human resource management, urban government, and special issues in public administration.

Model Efforts in Citizen Participation and Civic Education: What We Can Learn From Argentine and Chilean Nonprofits and Governments
Ran Coble

What can be done to reverse the decline in the many duties and responsibilies of a citizen in a democracy? A good source of ideas may be the younger, more experimental democracies of South America. This article focuses on model programs and innovations among Argentinian and Chilean nonprofits. It is my hope that these programs may serve as guides for U. S. nonprofts seeking citizen participation and civic education.

Ran Coble is the Executive Director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Economic Reform in India: Task Force Report
Sandeep Ahuja, Jaime Allentuck, Jimin Chung, Charles Corrigan, Ian Hathaway, Christopher Martin, Micki O'Neil, Benjamin Reeves, Carolina Rojas, Lisa Rushing, Daniel Swift, and Jennifer Yeaw

During the inaugural International Policy Practicum Program, twelve graduate students at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies studied recent Indian economic reforms. The Practicum culminated in a ten day trip to Bangalore and Delhi, led by Professor Charles Wheelan in December 2005. During their visit, the students met with business leaders, economists, politicians, civil servants, and leaders of nonprofits to examine how recent reforms have affected Indian life. Upon their return, the students combined their field work in India with their previous research to write the following article, which surveys recent economic reforms, recommends further policy changes, and comments on how India’s development will affect the United States.