and the   Deans Research Seminar

Public service in the 21st Century: 

What's broken and how do we fix it?

This is our last year of work under the Visions of Governance project--examining the problems of public service in the 21st century, and our prospects for resolving them--cuts especially close to the core of our mission as a professional school of government. This work, and the intellectual products that emerged from it, can help to inform continuing conversations about our goals as an institution, and how best to advance them.

Several pre-publication chapters from For the People: Can We Fix Public Service?  are linked below for you to read in advance of the meetings.   The authors of several other chapters will summarize their work and seed a wider discussion. At the final session--a dinner meeting on March 3--the chairs of our Masters' program will open the conversation on the implications of their colleagues' research for our work as a school.

Agenda

Session 1          Diagnosis:  The Problem with Public Service

February 19     (4:00 - 6:00, Taubman A and B)

                        Advance Readings:

•  George Borjas, “The Wage Structure and the Sorting of Workers into the Public Sector”(pfd)

•    Pippa Norris, “Is There Still a Public Service Ethos?  Work Values, Experience and Job Satisfaction Among Government Workers”(pdf)

• Jack Donahue, “Inners and Outers:  Up or Down?”(pdf)

                        Panelists:  Steve Kelman and Elaine Kamarck

Session 2        Prescriptions:  Options and Prospects

March 3:         (4:00 – 6:00, Taubman B)

                          Advance Readings:

•  Ernest May and Alex Keyssar, “Education for Public Service in the History of the United States”(pdf)

•  Iris Bohnet and Susan Eaton, “Does Performance Pay Perform?  Conditions for Success in the Public Sector”(pdf)

•  Merilee Grindle, “The Good, the Bad, and the Unavoidable: Improving the Public Service in Poor Countries” (pdf)

Panelists:  Derek Bok, Steve Goldsmith and Bob Behn

Session 3            Dinner and Discussion

March 3:            (6:00 – 9:00, location TBA)

                            Reception (6:00-6:30) Fainsod Room

                            Dinner (6:45 – 7:45) Malkin Penthouse

                            Discussion (7:45 – 9:00) Malkin Penthouse

•   Reflections on the two sessions by Masters’ Program chairs 

•   General discussion

Participation at all three sessions strongly encouraged.  Please RSVP to Lynn Akin.