Suchergebnisse

Everybody knows federal agencies are brain-dead leviathans. Everybody knows that the watchword of federal management is "that's the way we've always done it." Everybody knows that any creativity within American government shows up only in the cities and states. Everybody's wrong. In 1995 the Ford Foundation's annual "Innovation in American Government" award competition was opened up to federal candidates and a third of the winners since then have been federal institutions. This book profiles the 14 federal award winners from 1995 to 1998 and challenges the conventional wisdom about the federal bureaucracy's capacity to adapt. Examples include the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which figured out how to identify and act upon business and government's shared stake in keeping dangerous products out of consumers' hands; and the Wage and Hour inspectors in the Labor Department, who deployed market leverage to put pressure on the garment-industry scofflaws whose sweatshops had evaded conventional enforcement. The stories show how pressure, promises, and professional pride can galvanize federal managers and front-line workers to overcome what are admittedly imposing impediments to change, and persevere with new ways to deliver on their missions. And they illustrate the unfashionable truth that innovation is within Washington's repertoire after all. Copublished with the Council for Excellence in Government.

AbstractNegotiating the World Economy, by John S. Odell. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000,
252 pp., $45.00 cloth, $19.95 paper. Reviewed by Daniel J.B. MitchellEvaluating Welfare Reform in an Era of Transition, edited by Robert A. Moffitt and Michele Ver
Ploeg. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2001, 268 pp., $42.95. Reviewed by Daniel H. WeinbergRed Tape and Housing Costs: How Regulation Affects New Residential Development, by Michael I.
Luger and Kenneth Temkin. New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research, 2000, 192 pp., $24.95 cloth.
Reviewed by Thomas BierWaste Trading among Rich Nations, by Kate O'Neill. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000,
310 pp., $60.00 cloth, $22.00 paper. Reviewed by Lee S. FriedmanMarkets for Clean Air, by A. Denny Ellerman, Paul L. Joskow, Richard Schmalensee,
Juan‐Pablo Montero, and Elizabeth M. Bailey. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 352 pp.,
$40.00. Reviewed by Lee S. FriedmanThe Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the Struggle to Slow Global Warming, by David G.
Victor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001, 178 pp., $22.95. Reviewed by Robert FalknerCauses of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict, Stephen Van Evera, Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1999, 270 pp., $35.00 cloth, $17.95 paper. Reviewed by Erik GartzkePower versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons, by T. V. Paul. Montreal:
McGill‐Queen's University Press, 2000, 227 pp., $22.95. Reviewed by Leonard S. SpectorThe Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, by David S. Landes,
New York: W.W. Norton, 1998, 650 pp., $11.87 paper. Reviewed by Eugene B. McGregor, Jr.The End of the Nation‐state: The Rise of the Regional Economies, by Kenichi Ohmae, New
York: Free Press Paperbacks, 1995, 214 pp., $16.95 paper. Reviewed by Eugene B. McGregor, Jr.Governance in a Globalizing World, edited by Joseph S. Nye and John D. Donahue, Washington,
DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000, 386 pp., $18.95 paper. Reviewed by Eugene B. McGregor, Jr.