New Books in Public Policy

With a new focus on vocational and work ready education, the notion of a liberal education is becoming less valued in American society. Though, there are still defenders of this well-rounded and classic form of education. One staunch defender is Dr. Michael S. Roth, current President of Wesleyan University and author of Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters (Yale University Press, 2014). As the title suggests, Dr. Roth contends that liberal education is still important in higher education and how it can be molded onto modern advancements, such as aligning liberal education with MOOCs. To illustrate liberal education’s impact on American society, Dr. Roth’s book casts an expansive list of intellectuals, politicians, and writers who all espouse “enlightened” principles of education. From Thomas Jefferson’s belief that better education was needed so that the elites would not unfairly run society, to W. E. B. DuBois’ and Jane Addams’ inspiration from their German experiences, and Benjamin Franklin’s lampooning of Harvard elitism, this book includes a diverse, yet connected, plethora of figures throughout history. Dr. Roth helps to relate these historical narratives to contemporary educational conversations by interjecting his personal experiences in various areas of the book. Old ideals of “specialization” and the current vocational craze especially bond to provide relevance to today’s conversations. The book closes with Thomas Dewey, the influential American educator, and with a moment from the author’s lecture in China, where liberal education is just beginning to take hold. Dr. Roth joins the New Books in Education to discuss his book, his interesting education career, and to tell us what “pragmatic education” means. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Staci Zavattaro is the author of the new book Cities for Sale: Municipalities as Public Relations and Marketing Firms (SUNY Press, 2013). Zavattaro is assistant professor of public administration at Mississippi State University. Cities have received renewed interest from political scientists recently. Previously, Ravi K. Perry was on the podcast to discuss his book Black Mayors, White Majorities: The Balancing Act of Racial Politics (University of Nebraska Press, 2014). Zavattaro approaches the local subject from the perspective of public administration and an eye toward the marketing of cities. You’d be hard presses to live in a community that hasn’t launched a new publicity campaign or a new slogan to attract new residents.  Zavattaro tries to analyze these efforts and suggests that cities use six selling tactics to advance their interests: branding, media relations, in-house publications, use of volunteers and outside organizations as PR surrogates, aesthetic and affective appeal, and built environment via sustainability. Zavattaro acknowledges the limits of this metaphor and, in her conclusion, addresses the risks associated with a model of urban governance focused on marketing rather than other social values. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Matt Grossmann is back on the podcast with his newest book, Artists of the Possible: Governing Networks and American Policy Change Since 1945 (Oxford University Press, 2014). Grossmann is associate professor of political science at Michigan State University. He is also author of The Not-So-Special Interests, for which he appeared on the podcast in 2012. In Artists of the Possible, Grossman ponders who moves policy? Is it an enraged public or talking heads on TV? Grossmann suggests that neither public opinion nor media attention explain much about what happens in national policy making. Instead, governing networks – work between legislators, executives, and interest groups – drives most policy making. He relies on the careful coding of policy histories starting in 1945. Grossmann ends his book by writing: “The best bet in Washington politics is always on the status quo… “Not much” is still the best answer for what might happen over the next decade.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

“Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League.”  This was the headline of a recent New Republic article that reverberated across the internet recently, going viral as it was shared over 160 thousands times on Facebook. The author of this piece, Dr. William Deresiewicz, joins the New Books in Education podcast to discuss his new book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (Free Press 2014), which further elaborates upon his recent viral article and another from 2008,  “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education“. In Excellent Sheep, Deresiewicz draws on his decades of experience at Ivy League institutions; first, at Columbia where he did his undergraduate and graduate degrees, and then later at Yale where he taught for a decade. With an insiders view and a critical lens, he dissects what education at these types of institutions has become. He asserts that the hypercompetitive nature of elite institutions has taken away from self-discovery of students, a key facet to innovation and creativity. Deresiewicz’s book also confronts the social implications of a less meritocratic elite system of education. Particularly, he is concerned by the kind of elites that are being produced by prestigious education in America, with graduates that disproportionally pursue careers in self-serving fields like finance. Like his past viral essays, Excellent Sheep is a thought-provoking look at American society and provides keen insights into the world of elite education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Our Word is Our Bond: How Legal Speech Acts (Stanford UP, 2014), by UC Berkeley Professor of Rhetoric Marianne Constable, impels its readers to reassess the dominant methods of considering what is law. Constable’s study of law is informed by both philosophy and sociology; however, she avoids common approaches employed by both disciplines and instead conducts her legal analysis by searching for directives in the form of J.L. Austin’s “speech acts.” Her methods suggest that there is more of a connection between law-in-books and law-in-action than typical sociological research has proposed. Law-in-books, she argues, is active because it hears claims and makes claims within the context of a world that changes. An overview of the claims found within legal speech, such as promises, debts and warnings, reveals a dynamic force. Constable’s way of thinking about law insularly removes it from the debate between natural law and positive law. As the title Our Word is Our Bond suggests, the work seeks to show that legal language commits us. These commitments come directly from law’s speech acts, thus her theory avoids principles derived either from a sovereign or God. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

John L. Campbell and Ove K. Pedersen are the authors of The National Origins of Policy Ideas: Knowledge Regimes in the United States, France, Germany, and Denmark (Princeton University Press, 2014). Campbell is the Class of 1925 Professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College and professor of political economy and the Copenhagen Business School. Pederson is professor of comparative political economy at the Copenhagen Business School. Do policy ideas come from different places in different countries? Campbell and Pederson set out to unearth the policy generating infrastructure in four countries. They show that the US has a proliferation of competitive private policy organizations, France has a much more state-led system, semi-public organizations coordinate in Germany, and negotiation and consensus-building defines the system in Denmark. Campbell and Pederson rely on a trove of original interviews with key policy players in each country. The result is an original comparison of mechanics of how policy ideas are generated. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Josh Lerner is the author of Making Democracy Fun: How Game Design Can Empower Citizens and Transform Politics (MIT Press, 2014). Lerner earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from The New School for Social Research, and is now the Executive Director of The Participatory Budgeting Project, a nonprofit organization that empowers communities to decide how to spend public money. Lerner asks the question at the start of the book: Can games make democratic participation more fun? He does not mean game theory, he means actual games. Designed activities aimed to infuse the rules of a game to political decision making. He traces the use of gaming to advance public participation through Latin America, with particular attention on Rosario, Argentina. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Judith Kelley is the author of Monitoring Democracy: When International Election Observation Works, and Why It Often Fails (Princeton University  Press, 2012). Kelley is associate professor of public policy and political science at Duke University. Monitoring Democracy, which won the Co-Winner of the 2013 Chadwick F. Alger Prize from the International Studies Association, has numerous theoretical insights and empirical findings to deepen our knowledge of democratic elections. Kelley weaves together new data to answer novel, yet simple questions: Does election monitoring work? And when does it fail? Kelley suggests that governments invite monitors in for a variety of reasons, not all consistent with a goal of holding free and fair elections. And, likewise, monitors – some intergovernmental organizations others non-governmental organizations – have a varied set of constraints on their monitoring and reporting. A critical report on an election can stimulate positive change in some circumstances, but lead to violence and retribution in others. In the second part of the book, Kelley focuses on the quality of elections and correlates between monitoring and sound electoral practices. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Thomas A. Bryer joins the podcast to discuss his book Higher Education Beyond Job Creation: Universities, Citizenship, and Community (Lexington Books 2014). Dr. Bryer is the director of the Center for Public and Nonprofit Management University of Central Florida (UCF) and associate professor in the university’s School of Public Administration. Should the goal of higher education simply be about job creation? In Higher Education Beyond Job Creation, Dr. Bryer argues that job creation and economic factors should not be the only higher education policy consideration for policymakers, administrators, and alumni, and that community engagement, civic training, and other areas of interests should also be concerns for institutions. The book introduces the concept of SEE DEMOS (Student Empowered Education/ Democratizing Education for Members of Society), which is how students can become “active ethical citizens” through experiential learning and social engagement (p. 46). Dr. Bryer provides pedagogical examples of service learning throughout the book, focusing on a “joined up” service-learning course at UCF, where students are embedded with a local low-performing high school and tasked with mentoring students. The course has had wonderful results from both the school and the university perspectives. Dr. Bryer joins New Books in Education for the interview. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Darren Halpin is the author of The Organization of Political Interest Groups: Designing Advocacy (Routledge 2014). Halpin is associate professor and reader in Policy Studies, and the Head of School of Sociology, at the Research School of Social Sciences, the Australian National University. He is also co-editor of the journal Interest Groups and Advocacy and the Foundation Series Editor for the book series Interest Groups, Advocacy and Democracy (Palgrave, UK). Much has been written of late about the role of money in politics, lobbying, and so-called special interests. Halpin addresses these topics, but offers a fresh perspective drawn from theories of organizations. He argues that “This book develops an organizational perspective on group life, and then offers illustrations as to how it might give new insights to each compartment of the interest group canon.” Halpin takes differs from many others who study interest groups in political science, and thus makes an important contribution. He also offers a non-US perspective which advances the scholarship in a field dominated by US-based studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy