The past two centuries have brought a shift in the nature of American democracy so that the hallowed concepts of representation, the will of the people, and the executive have grown apart from the context that gave rise to them. Most Americans score poorly on surveys of political knowledge, the kudzu-like growth of bureaucracy frustrates accountability, political parties no longer mobilize voters, and unelected officials now perform tasks that the framers intended the president or members of Congress to personally attend to.
My research asks a contemporary version of a Progressive Era question: Can an 18th century Constitution address 21st century problems? By Constitution, I refer to the system of laws and norms and separation of powers and not simply the written text of the document ratified in 1789. My work touches on the areas of institutions and organizations, public administration, American political development, and public policy.
I want to understand whether democracy still works by examining various forces that challenge democratic institutions:
· the increasing power of government and the executive combined with the diffusion of government authority across the bureaucracy and even non-governmental organizations.
· the market
· religious and cultural diversity
· globalization, and, specifically, new threats (real and perceived) to internal and external national security
"How Security Agencies Control Change: Executive Power and the Quest for Autonomy in the FBI and CIA," Public Organization Review, 2009. Available online at www.springerlink.com
"Can Climate Signals Inform Emergency Management? Preliminary Evidence" With Kris Wernstedt and Matthew Dull. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 2009.
"Models of Network Governance for Technology and Security and Implications for Leadership in Energetics," Blacksburg, Va.: Center for Public Administration and Policy, April 15, 2009, 59pp. Presented to the US Navy and US Congress.
“A Capacity for Mitigation as the Next Frontier in Homeland Security,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 124, No. 1, Spring 2009, 127-142. This article appears in the Spring 2009 issue of Political Science Quarterly available in print and online at www.psqonline.org.
“Dispersed Federalism as a New Regional Governance for Homeland Security,” Publius: The International Journal of Federalism (Summer 2008), 416-443.
“Making ‘Risk-Based’ a Reality: Constructing a National Hazards Risk Assessment,” chapter forthcoming in a book from the Public Entity Risk Institute
“Private Choices, Public Harms: The Evolution of US National Disaster Agencies,” in The Privatization of Risk, ed. Andrew Lakoff, Social Science Research Council, forthcoming
“What the Catastrophist Heresy Teaches Public Managers,” Administrative Theory & Praxis, 29: 4 December 2007.
“Toward a National Hazard Risk Assessment,” Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Communication/Research Note (4:3) (15 pgs.) August 2007.
“FEMA After Katrina,”Policy Review, June/July 2006.
“FEMA and the Prospects for Reputation-Based Autonomy,” Studies in American Political Development 20 (Spring 2006), 57-87
“What Katrina Means for Emergency Management,”The Forum, 3:3 November 2005.
“Shifting Priorities: Congressional Incentives and the Homeland Security Granting Process,” Review of Policy Research, 22:4, July-August 2005.
“The Master of Disaster as Bureaucratic Entrepreneur,” PS 38:2, April 2005.
“Mr. Jefferson’s ‘Private’ College: The Privatization of the Public University,” with David L. Kirp in David L. Kirp, Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education (Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 2003).
"Continuity, Competence, and the Succession of Senate-Confirmed Agency Appointees (with Matthew Dull), Presidential Studies Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 3 (Septmeber 2009): 432-453.
"Congress Should Repair the Vacancies Act," (wiith Matthew Dul) The Hill, January 9, 2009.
"Talking about God in Modesto," with Emile Lester, The American Interest, Summer 2008.
“How Teaching World Religions Brought a Truce to the Culture Wars in Modesto, California,” (with Emile Lester) British Journal of Religious Education, forthcoming
“The Distinctive Paradox of Religious Tolerance: Active Tolerance as a Mean Between Passive Tolerance and Recognition” (with Emile Lester), Public Affairs Quarterly, (20:4) October 2006.
Learning About World Religions in Public Schools, modesto_monograph.pdf, (with Emile Lester), (Nashville, Tn.: First Amendment Center, Vanderbilt University and the Freedom Forum June 2006), monograph, 68pp.
“How One School District Found Religion,” (with Emile Lester) USA Today, May 21, 2006.
"Teaching World Religions in Public Schools," CSPAN, Close Up, May 8, 2006, Arlington, Virginia.
Review of Barry Bozeman's Public Values and Public Interests in Markets & Morality
Review of Richard Posner's Catastrophe: Risk and Response in Homeland Security Affairs, January 2008
Review of Timothy Naftali’s Blindspot, Perspectives on Political Science, April 2006.
“Organizing for Homeland Security,” Perspectives on Political Science (review essay) (35:1), January 2006.
"Lost Boys at 70" Policy Review, June 2004; review essay of James J. Heckman and Alan B. Krueger, Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies?, Harvard University Press and John H. Laub and Robert J. Sampson, Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives: Delinquent Boys to Age 70, MIT Press.
Disasters and the Democratic State , book ms.
Organizational (Un)learning and the Failure of the Drought Early Warning System in Niger
