Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Vietnam War Memorial And The Gulf War, Paul L. Atwood

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article discusses the debate over the "meaning" of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., relating it to the revision of the "Vietnam syndrome" as it has been played out in recent U.S. armed interventions overseas. Considerable political struggle occurred during the design phase of the memorial over which values the monument should enshrine. Since its construction the memorial has continued to be a focus for controversy about the future direction of U.S. foreign policy and has functioned as a magnet for continuing historical and political attempts to sort out the "lessons" of the second Indochina war. This debate …

Searching For A Umass President: Transitions And Leaderships, 1970-1991, Richard A. Hogarty

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article traces the history of the five presidential successions that have taken place at the University of Massachusetts since 1970. No manual or campus report will reveal the one best way to conduct a presidential search. How to do so is not easy to prescribe. Suitably fleshed out, the events surrounding these five searches tell us a great deal about what works and what doesn't. It is one thing to offer case illustrations of past events, another to say how they might be put to use by other people in another era with quite different situations and concerns. In …

Defense Cuts: What Might Connecticut Expect On The Manufacturing Employment Front?, Bruce D. Wundt

New England Journal of Public Policy

Connecticut has enjoyed considerable economic prosperity as a result of its reliance on the defense industry. However, as a consequence of reductions in federal spending on defense, this favorable trend of many years is reversing, unfortunately, while the region is also experiencing a general economic slowdown. Many Connecticut industries must prepare for a new era of reducing their dependence on defense contracts and diversify into new markets and products. State policymakers can help during these uncertain times by encouraging private and public retraining of labor resources and the expansion of industries that will promote economic stability.

Representative Men, Shaun O'Connell

New England Journal of Public Policy

"Representativeness" is the theme of Shaun O'Connell's essay, "Representative Men." Reviewing six books, one about an actual man and five about fictional men, O'Connell sees them as attempts to define "representative men" of the 1980s, "an era," he observes, "when the worst were full of passionate intensities, particularly among men." Each antiheroic man in these books, he concludes, was "selfish, domineering, dangerous to women, and deceitful, yet each man was also committed to a system of values and ideas that made him an interesting case history — values which, in some instances, redeemed his failings."

As usual, O'Connell, in his …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

This issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy is an eclectic mix. Its range and diversity, however, illuminate one of the less considered aspects of public policy: the fact that policy itself, despite the efforts of policy theorists, and on occasion policymakers and practitioners, to invest it with the trappings of rational, scientific method, rarely if ever is defined in politically or culturally neutral terms. The pretense that this is not so suggests that there exists some set of objective criteria that are impervious to either political or cultural dictates. In reality, of course, nothing could be further …

Public Participation In Hazard Management: The Use Of Citizen Panels In The U.S., Ortwin Renn, Thomas Webler, Branden B. Johnson

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

After discussing the need for citizen participation in Risk management and a method of facilitating such participation as developed in Germany, the authors discuss and analyze its subsequent modification and use in a sewage sludge management project in New Jersey.

Recognizing Risks And Paying For Risk Reduction, Gary W. Johnson

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Inspired by a recent report of EPA's Science Advisory Board, Mr. Johnson argues that it is imperative that we set regulatory priorities lest we invest available resources in reducing Risks that are lower than others that might instead be addressed.

The Global Economy And The American Welfare State, Howard Jacob Karger

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The American social welfare state is approaching a crisis because of the global economy. Survival in a new world economy requires corporations to become more efficient, a strategy which leads to a rapidly changing technology, plant shutdowns, and industrial reorganization. To aid corporations, government often curbs taxes to make capital available for investment. These policies can lead to governmental debt, reduced welfare services, a deterioration in the infrastructure, and myriad social problems. This article investigates the effects of the global economy on the American welfare state.

War, Peace, And "The System": Three Perspectives, Paul Adams

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Social workers have sometimes seen war as part of a larger system and as linked to other forms of violence or social evil. This article considers three kinds of analysis which identify different systems (capitalism, patriarchy, and exterminism), see the links in different ways, and lead to different practical conclusions. Each perspective is examined in terms of its capacity to explain the phenomena it describes and to identify a social change strategy that can eliminate them. It is suggested that social workers may be professionally predisposed to select among these perspectives for reasons other than their explanatory power or strategic …

Does Social Security Redistribute Income?: A Tax-Transfer Analysis, Namkee G. Choi

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Despite some forced-savings elements, social security is in reality a taxtransfer system based on pay-as-you-go financing. Using a tax-transfer approach, this paper analyzes the redistributive effects of social security by comparing the 1986 benefit distribution to the retired and disabled population, their dependents, and survivors with the 1986 payroll tax incidence of the working population. Findings indicate that a considerable degree of redistribution occurs from middle- and high-income tax payers to poor and near-poor beneficiaries. The paper also analyzes the demographic characteristics of taxpayers and beneficiaries to measure redistribution among different genders, marital status, age, and racial groups.

The Impact Of The State Constitutional Convention Of 1917 On State Aid To Higher Education In Massachusetts, John P. Whittaker

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Massachusetts State Constitutional Convention of 1917 marked a turning point in the development of higher education in the state. An amendment adopted at the convention put an end to a long tradition of direct state appropriations to support the development of private colleges and to proposals for cooperative efforts between various state agencies and private institutions. After that time, only state institutions would receive state support. This decision resulted from an attempt to resolve an intense debate over the use of public funding for sectarian and other private institutions, which reflected the intense religious and class conflict inherent in …

Touched By Fire: Readings In Time Of War, Shaun O'Connell

New England Journal of Public Policy

In "Touched by Fire: Readings in Times of War," Shaun O'Connell draws us into the eerie atmosphere that pulled this country into itself in the late fall and early winter, when thoughts of war provoked hard questions and when, for a time, doubt became the stuff of eloquence.

The works discussed in this article include: Pledging Allegiance: The Last Campaign of the Cold War, by Sidney Blumenthal; Millie's Book, as dictated to Barbara Bush; An American Life, by Ronald Reagan; The Civil War: An Illustrated History, by Geoffrey C. Ward with Ric Burns and Ken Burns; …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

This issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy was conceived during the hot, slow days of early August when Saddam Hussein's marauding armies swallowed Kuwait. Contributors made revisions to their manuscripts while President George Bush committed the United States to protecting Saudi Arabia's oligarchy (read "oil for the West"), requiring a military buildup in the harsh sands that was larger than anything of its kind since World War II. The admen in the Pentagon came up with the catchy little logo Desert Shield. Repeated calls by the coalition of nations, led by the United States, for Saddam Hussein's …

Public Benefit And Private Interest: Chronicles Of The Hyde Park Paper Mill, Jeffrey E. Lindenthal

New England Journal of Public Policy

Until it was mothballed and put up for sale in December 1987, a small paper mill in Hyde Park, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Boston 's city limits, was the oldest continuously operating paper mill in the United States. This particular plant closing occurred at a time manufacturing employment in the state had fallen off precipitously. It also coincided with an awareness among some policymakers that recycling programs were urgently needed to combat a garbage glut, in Massachusetts and states across the nation, attributable to an increasingly wasteful society and dwindling landfill capacity. Efforts to reopen the Hyde Park …

Social Investment In Massachusetts Public Higher Education: A Comparative Analysis, Clyde W. Barrow

New England Journal of Public Policy

State expenditures on public higher education are increasingly viewed as a social investment that is necessary to sustain economic growth in a postindustrial economy. However, an analysis of comparative data indicates that state support for such education was below national averages during the 1980s and, when compared to its major competitor states, Massachusetts ranks poorly in support for these institutions. This article concludes that unless state support is increased over the next decade, Massachusetts will risk losing its competitive economic position, while educational administrators will be forced to choose between access or quality in public higher education.

Regulating Air Toxics In Rhode Island: Policy Vs. Technical Decisions, Julie A. Roque

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Dr. Roqu6 recounts her work as a doctoral candidate at Brown in developing standards for the regulation of airborne carcinogens. Based in part on this experience, she argues that care needs be taken lest those who regulate Risk bury key policy decisions within a mass of often irrelevant technical details.

An Examination Of Research Explaining Public Welfare Spending At The State Level, Robert G. Mogull

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A large body of research has examined the determinants of welfare spending at various jurisdictional levels. This paper takes stock of the accomplishments of these studies within a limited framework. Primary socioeconomic and political factors are surveyed and reviewed with respect to their explanatory association with appropriations for public welfare at the level of states.

Conservative Welfare Reform Proposals And The Reality Of Subemployment, Robert Sheak, David D. Dabelko

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article analyzes and critiques conservative welfare proposals and their assumptions. The concept of subemployment is introduced along with relevant data to identify the nature of the job problem in the U.S. since the early 1970s. Particular emphasis is placed upon the magnitude of employment difficulties during the 1980s. The article concludes that without a major job creation component, conservative welfare reforms intensify rather than ameliorate the subsistence living conditions of the poor.

Issues For Managing Tourism Information, Robert M. O'Halloran, Donald F. Holecek

Hospitality Review

The need for a high quality tourism database is well known. For example, planners and managers need high quality data for budgeting, forecasting, planning marketing and advertising strategies, and staffing. Thus the concepts of quality and need are intertwined to pose a problem to the tourism professional, be they private sector or public sector employees. One could argue that collaboration by public and private sector tourism professionals could provide the best sources and uses of high quality tourism data. This discussion proposes just such a collaboration and a detailed methodology for operationalizing this arrangement.

The School Choice Issue: Remarks Made At The U.S. Department Of Education's Regional Strategy Meeting On Choice In Education, Phyllis Mcclure

Trotter Review

The term choice as it is used by the current administration with regard to education is a cosmetic, simplistic response to the failure of American schools. Choice has become a catch-all term for a whole variety of programs, plans, and theories. We should not let this meeting or the Department of Education delude us into believing that parental choice holds the promise for poor and minority children. The term is being used to describe not only what is happening in District 4 [public school district in New York City], but a plethora of ideas based on the free market. I …

Response: Real World Energy Policy, Matthew Hunter

Maine Policy Review

Secure and reasonably priced energy supplies have always been vital to the welfare of Maine's economy and its people. Maine responded to the energy shocks of the 1970s with important state policies, designed in large part to reduce dependence on foreign oil. John Flumerfelt and Richard Silkman of the State Planning Office [this issue] provide an overview of Maine's recent history of energy use and an analysis of both past and future energy policies in Maine. Matthew Hunter of Central Maine Power provides here an alternative perspective on energy policy.

Our State's Transportation Infrastructure: Can It Support Maine's Way Of Life?, Steven C. Deller

Maine Policy Review

For most of the era since 1960, when environmental policy and resource policy have been central public issues, the focus of public debates on those policies was at the federal and state levels. Now, more and more of the decisions and policies that will determine the quality of life for citizens are being made at the local level. Issues that have historically been local prerogatives are increasingly identified as crucial for effective environmental policy and for insuring "quality of life." Those local decisions are often constrained by a wide variety of state and federal policies on environmental policy and resource …

Matching Municipal Challenges And Resources: Intergovernmental Options, Christopher Spruce

Maine Policy Review

For most of the era since 1960, when environmental policy and resource policy have been central public issues, the focus of public debates on those policies was at the federal and state levels. Now, more and more of the decisions and policies that will determine the quality of life for citizens are being made at the local level. There is concern over the ability of small governmental units, which often rely heavily on the New England tradition of volunteer government, to manage the new array of technical issues. Christopher Spruce asks if we should not think more carefully about the …

Water Management By Local Governments, Nick Houtman

Maine Policy Review

For most of the era since 1960, when environmental policy and resource policy have been central public issues, the focus of public debates on those policies was at the federal and state levels. Now, more and more of the decisions and policies that will determine the quality of life for citizens are being made at the local level. Issues that have historically been local prerogatives are increasingly identified as crucial for effective environmental policy and for insuring "quality of life." Those local decisions are often constrained by a wide variety of state and federal policies on environmental policy and resource …

The Role Of Public Utilities, Robert S. Briggs

Maine Policy Review

The regulation of public utilities in Maine continues to evolve in response to changing economic, political and social forces. Not only has the structure of regulation of the electrical and telecommunications industry seen dramatic changes in the past 20 years, but it also is certain the next decade will see equally fundamental changes. Maine Policy Review invited three key participants in Maine's regulatory arena to interpret the changes of the past two decades and what future changes we can expect. This article provides the perspectives of Robert Briggs of Bangor Hydro-Electric.

The Changing Role Of Regulation In The Telecommunications Industry, Thomas D. Mcbrierty

Maine Policy Review

The regulation of public utilities in Maine continues to evolve in response to changing economic, political and social forces. Not only has the structure of regulation of the electrical and telecommunications industry seen dramatic changes in the past 20 years, but it also is certain the next decade will see equally fundamental changes. Maine Policy Review invited three key participants in Maine's regulatory arena to interpret the changes of the past two decades and what future changes we can expect. This article provides the perspectives of Thomas McBrierty of New England Telephone.

Solid Waste Management In Local Municipalities, George K. Criner

Maine Policy Review

For most of the era since 1960, when environmental policy and resource policy have been central public issues, the focus of public debates on those policies was at the federal and state levels. Now, more and more of the decisions and policies that will determine the quality of life for citizens are being made at the local level. Issues that have historically been local prerogatives are increasingly identified as crucial for effective environmental policy and for insuring "quality of life." Those local decisions are often constrained by a wide variety of state and federal policies on environmental policy and resource …

Changing Perspectives On The Facility Siting Process, David Laws, Lawrence Susskind

Maine Policy Review

Building regionally necessary but locally noxious facilities such as power plants, landfills, waste incinerators and prisons has become increasingly difficult. David Laws and Lawrence Susskind discuss some of the traditional steps involved, including needs assessment, choice of technology, site selection, assessing and mitigating impacts, and management. They provide an alternative approach to facility siting that includes, among other things, seeking consensus, working to develop trust, setting realistic timetables, getting agreement that the status quo is unacceptable, choosing a design that best addresses the problem, and fully compensating for negative aspects of the facility.

Market Failure Requires Aggressive Action, Beth A. Nagusky

Maine Policy Review

Secure and reasonably priced energy supplies have always been vital to the welfare of Maine's economy and its people. Maine responded to the energy shocks of the 1970s with important state policies, designed in large part to reduce dependence on foreign oil. John Flumerfelt and Richard Silkman of the State Planning Office [this issue] provide an overview of Maine's recent history of energy use and an analysis of both past and future energy policies in Maine. Beth Nagusky of the Natural Resources Council of Maine provides here an alternative perspective on energy policy.

Planning Maine's Energy Future, Richard H. Silkman, John M. Flumerfelt

Maine Policy Review

Secure and reasonably priced energy supplies have always been vital to the welfare ofMaine's economy and its people.Maineresponded to the energy shocks of the 1970s with important state policies, designed in large part to reduce dependence on foreign oil. John Flumerfelt and Richard Silkman of the State Planning Office provide for us an overview of Maine's recent history of energy use and an analysis of both past and future energy policies in Maine. Two alternatives perspectives on energy policy are provided by Beth Nagusky of the Natural Resources Council of Maine and Matthew Hunter of Central Maine Power [this issue].