Public Policy Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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 …

From A Troubled Past To An Uncertain Future: Vietnam Veterans, A Community At Risk: Five-Year Follow-Up Report On The Status Of Vietnam Veterans In The Commonwealth Of Massachusetts, Paul R. Camacho, Kevin Bowen, David Hunt

William Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences Publications

This report on the concerns of Vietnam and Vietnam-Era veterans in Massachusetts comes at a critical moment. When the inquiry was initiated in 1988, few people anticipated the precipitous decline in the state and national economy, fewer could have foreseen the rapid sequence of events leading to American entry into another war. As the state fiscal crisis has eroded gains made by veterans over the last 20 years and military service in the Gulf has changed the lives of a new generation of Americans, it becomes all the more urgent to recognize the long-term, multi-generational consequences of war and to …

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 …

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 …

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; …

After The Revolt: A Framework For Fiscal Recovery, Joseph S. Slavet, Raymond G. Torto

McCormack Graduate School General Publications (active until 2013)

Despite the injection of new taxes in the amount of $1 .2 billion in fiscal 1991, and recently announced cuts in the budget of approximately $464 million, the Commonwealth's fiscal condition - irrespective of the outcome of CLT's petition -is precarious. Although the political juices are flowing in Massachusetts, with an eye on November 6th, Massachusetts decision-makers have not faced up to the problems inherent in the long-term, structural spending patterns of the state's budget.

Our five-year budget projection indicates that if expenditure trends continue without dramatic restructuring - particularly in the "non-discretionary" accounts - the Commonwealth faces a steady …

On Being A Republican In Massachusetts: Notes Of A Party Chairman, Andrew Natsios

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the 1970s the Democratic and Republican national and state parties initiated efforts at party renewal in order to reverse their declining institutional power. Between 1980 and 1987 the Massachusetts Republican Party undertook a renewal effort modeled after that of the Republican National Committee under William Brock. This model emphasized the provision to candidates and to the grassroots party organization of campaign sendees such as literature design, polling, direct mail fund-raising, telephone banks, and campaign schools. The Massachusetts Republican Party concentrated these services to candidates for the state legislature, achieving the largest net gain in seats since 1962. Campaign technology …

Who Was That Woman I Didn't See You With Last Night?, Norman W. Merrill

New England Journal of Public Policy

The 1988 presidential campaign elicited numerous complaints about negative campaigning. But compared to the vicious rhetoric popular at the birth of the republic the rhetoric of the latest campaign was quite mild. Invective rhetoric was employed by the Founding Fathers, men like John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and James Callender. The partisan press of the time contributed greatly to the harsh tone of politics. All participants felt free to make acerbic remarks directed at the man rather than the issue, a tradition that continued throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. Many of the charges made by American politicians were …

The Vision Thing, Shaun O'Connell

New England Journal of Public Policy

In "The Vision Thing," Shaun O'Connell reviews a number of books whose subject matter is not merely the presidential election of 1988, but the impact of image politics in the age of the thirty-second sound bite. He quotes Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death: "Just as the television commercial empties itself of authentic product information so that it can do its psychological work of [pseudotherapy], image politics empties itself of authentic political sustenance for the same reason."

The works discussed in this article include: All by Myself: The Unmaking of a Presidential Campaign, by Christine M. Black …

The Presidential Primary: A Faulty Process, Douglas A. Fraser, Irving Bluestone

New England Journal of Public Policy

The system of presidential primary elections has in effect created a nonsystem for selecting party candidates for the highest office in the nation. Personality has become the substitute for program content, and campaign spending coupled with the influence of the media counts for more than the candidates' experience, knowledge, expertise, administrative ability, and attachment to the policies and programs of their respective political party. In large measure the current presidential primary system has failed in its objective to advance the democratic process within the political parties while undermining the effectiveness of the parties and the importance of activists, the party …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

"Of all the difficulties facing the historian in his task of understanding and discussing the past, none can be greater than that of emphatically recreating the popular 'mood' defining any particular event or period," writes Paul Kennedy. This issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy is about mood and politics and how synergistic interplay of the two in recent years reflects both the national and local psyche.

The Nowhere Man: When The "Miracle" Turned To Mush, David Nyhan

New England Journal of Public Policy

He didn 't steal money, go to jail, become embroiled in a personal scandal, or appoint a pack of thieves to high office, as other Massachusetts politicians have on occasion. But his fall was as dramatic as if he had done any or all of the above. From winning reelection in 1986 with 69 percent ofthe vote, then capturing the Democrats' presidential nomination, his fortunes sank like a stone.

Michael Stanley Dukakis, the stoic son of Greek immigrants, became a figure of ridicule in his third term. Thanks to the regional economy's sharp recession and the lingering effects of the …

Jfk: The Education Of A President, Nigel Hamilton

New England Journal of Public Policy

What goes into the making of a president? To what extent are the mind and character of the American commander in chief determined by his background, his family — and his education? This article represents a transcript of two lectures Nigel Hamilton presented in the spring and fall of 1989 at the Massachusetts State Archives. They were derived from the preliminary sketches for the author's full-scale biography of John F. Kennedy, to be published by Houghton Mifflin in 1992 on the anniversary of the birth of the thirty-fifth president.

After The Miracle: A History And Analysis Of The Massachusetts Fiscal Crisis: Being A Drama In Five Acts, With An Implied Invitation To The Reader To Participate In The Crafting Of The Final Act, Joseph S. Slavet, Raymond G. Torto, Edmund Beard, Louis C. Dinatale

McCormack Graduate School General Publications (active until 2013)

"After the Miracle" documents the factors that have shaped the recent political debate in Massachusetts and are likely to determine continuing economic and fiscal conditions in Massachusetts in the near future. The paper indicates that 1990 may begin a decade of real limits for Massachusetts. The economy has stagnated and the next two years will be a period of deep economic uncertainty. It is also clear that a resurgence, like that of the boom period of the eighties, is unlikely to be replicated.

The 1980's was a period when state-local spending in Massachusetts, propelled by the infusion of double-digit tax …

Long-Term Care Policy: Where Are We Going?, Gerontology Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston, Omb Watch

Gerontology Institute Publications

Millions of Americans suffer from physical or mental conditions that make it difficult for them to live fully independent lives. These are the frail elderly, disabled and chronically ill persons of all ages, and many mentally ill or mentally retarded persons. They need help to manage daily activities, whether they live in their own homes or in nursing homes.

Such care can be extremely expensive, since it often must be provided for many years, even a lifetime. Today, those costs are met largely by the individuals themselves or by their families and by public programs for low-income persons.

For many …

Foreword, Rosabeth Moss Kanter

New England Journal of Public Policy

Two significant facts are apparent from reading this volume. First, the authors are themselves examples of women overcoming barriers, breaking into formerly all-male domains, succeeding against the odds, and exercising economic, political, and educational leadership — on behalf of other women as well as on behalf of the institutions they serve. Thus their own lives are eloquent rebuke to anyone who still thinks that women cannot manage effectively in any realm, or that women must always take second place to men, or that family responsibilities make women less serious about public responsibilities, or that women fail to help one another; …

Women And Economic Empowerment, Kitty Dukakis, Vivian Li

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article proposes a women's economic agenda to help fulfill the needs of working women. The first component outlined is the appointment of women who are sensitive to the needs of all women, including the poor, to key decision-making positions. The agenda then calls for employers to recognize changing workforce demographics by initiating programs that can accommodate the needs of single-person as well as dual-income households. The final component is an argument for the implementation of pay equity.

Not By Numbers Alone: A New Decade For Women In The Law, Margaret H. Marshall

New England Journal of Public Policy

There has been a dramatic increase in both the percentage and the numbers of women who have entered the legal profession in the last fifteen years, but women have not penetrated its higher echelons — partnerships in law firms, general counsel of corporations, and chiefs of government bureaus — in the same percentage that those advances should be reflecting. While entry-level salaries may be equal for male and female attorneys, are women in the legal world discovering the same glass ceilings and barriers to entry at these top levels of economic empowerment that their corporate counterparts have experienced? The author …

From The Bar To The Bar: Prevailing Despite Gender Bias, Nancy Woolley

New England Journal of Public Policy

The report of the Gender Bias Study of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was released in May 1989. After a thorough study of the areas of family law, domestic violence and sexual assault, criminal and juvenile justice, civil damage awards, gender bias in courthouse interactions, and court personnel, the study committee concluded that there was significant gender-based bias in the courts. The following article demonstrates how bias affected one woman and her children, and how, in spite of it and with the help of individuals and institutions in the private sector, she has attained empowerment and …

Women And Power: Women In Politics, Cathleen Douglas Stone

New England Journal of Public Policy

Are women making progress in the political arena, or are their frustrations at access to elective office severe enough to warrant their own political party? This article examines the statistics and argues that women should seize political power by voting as a bloc. As loyalty to traditional parties declines while their interest in and sensitivity to social issues grows, the moment is right for a real increase in women's political power.

Editor's Note, Dawn-Marie Driscoll

New England Journal of Public Policy

This issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy had many beginnings and, like most efforts in which a theme is slowly resolved, probably should not have an ending.

The discussion of this theme started several years ago when a group of senior Boston businesswomen talked about the need and value of meeting on a semi-regular basis. Their purpose would be to focus discussions on a narrow but important issue — the economic advancement of women.

The criteria for these informal meetings quickly fell into place. All the women who comprised the group would be drawn from within the …

Moving In The Economic Mainstream, Brunetta R. Wolfman

New England Journal of Public Policy

The requirements for economic mobility in a postindustrial society present many barriers for low-income women. Social policy and program goals for improving their opportunities should focus on educational, training, and entrepreneurial activities using individualized assessment, counseling, and academic and occupational advisers. Social consensus needs to be achieved in order to establish viable programs that address women's total needs rather than approaching the problem with fragmented, uncoordinated solutions.

Women, Power, And Partnership, Elizabeth Graham Cook

New England Journal of Public Policy

As women in a community move into senior positions from which they can influence the economic advancement of women at all levels, commentators have examined factors contributing to their advancement. This article outlines data about the Women's Economic Forum, a Boston group formed in 1985. The degree to which interdependence or "partnership" is a positive element in achieving the group's objectives suggests that other communities could adopt the WEF model.

Women, Politics, And The Nineties: The Abortion Debate, Susan Estrich

New England Journal of Public Policy

The fight for political empowerment of women may finally break wide open over the issues of reproductive freedom. This article posits that while public attention has focused on courtroom attempts to limit Roe v. Wade, the issues will ultimately be decided in the political arena. Here, Estrich says, the framer of the question may be the ultimate victor. For those on the pro-choice side of the debate, the next election cycle may be their first real opportunity to vote as a bloc and wield real political power.

Women, Leadership, And Power, Marilyn Swartz Lloyd

New England Journal of Public Policy

Women strive to attain power because it is the best way to achieve their personal and professional goals. This article describes how empowerment enabled its author to capture the vision of an ideal city in which education, culture, business, and industry all enjoy dignity and respect. Gaining acceptance for a light manufacturing zone in the city of Boston involved learning to build constituencies and rally support for a winning campaign.

The Third Stage: An Economic Strategy, Dawn-Marie Driscoll

New England Journal of Public Policy

If the first stage of the women's movement raised consciousness, changed statutes, and proposed the Equal Rights Amendment, and the second stage broadened the debate to include family, workplace, and societal issues, the third stage may focus simply on giving women economic power and independence. Issues for women in the 1990s will center on economics; this article suggests strategies for achieving these goals.

Employment Leave: Foundation For Family Policy, Mary Jane Gibson

New England Journal of Public Policy

Women and men in the workforce face difficult dilemmas during family crises. Can one be a responsible family member and a responsible employee when an elderly parent is ill, a spouse is disabled, a baby is born or adopted, a child is sick? Employment leave with insurance for wage replacement is a cornerstone of family policy proposed in a workable format in H. 2191 now before the Massachusetts legislature. It can be a model for other states and, someday, the nation.

A Feminized Work Force, A Humanized Workplace, Evelyn Murphy

New England Journal of Public Policy

Enhancing the opportunities for women in the workplace in the next decade will become an economic imperative, not just an issue of social justice. In this article Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Murphy sets forth recommendations for policymakers in both the public and private sector that begin to change our notions of what constitutes a humanized workplace. If the economy is to remain strong, these initiatives will be required to improve business productivity as well as the life of all family members.