Public Voices XIII-1 Cover 10-9-13_Layout 2 10/9/13 4:58 PM Page 1 P Public Voices u b l i c V o i c e s V o l u m e X I I I , N u m b e r 1 Volume XIII Number 1 Public Voices Editor-in-Chief: Marc Holzer, Rutgers University – Campus at Newark Managing Editor: Iryna Illiash, Rutgers University – Campus at Newark Book Review Editor: John Phillips, Benedictine University at Springfield Assistant Editor: Ginger Swiston, Rutgers University – Campus at Newark Editorial Board Robert Agranoff, Indiana University William Lester, Jacksonville State University Danny L. Balfour, Grand Valley State University Carol W. Lewis, University of Connecticut Sandford Borins, University of Toronto Robert A. Maranto, University of Arkansas Geert Bouckaert, Catholic University of Leuven, Patricia Marsolais, City of Dallas, TX Belgium Michael Miller, City of Phoenix, AZ Frances Burke, Suffolk University, Boston Brent R. Never, University of Missouri – Linda F. Dennard, Auburn University at Kansas City Montgomery Kenneth Nichols, University of Maine David John Farmer, Virginia Commonwealth Valerie L. Patterson, Florida International University University Vatche Gabrielian, American University of Michael W. Popejoy, Central Michigan Armenia University Terence M. Garrett, University of Texas at Beryl Radin, American University Brownsville Wilbur Rich, Wellesley College Charles Goodsell, Virginia Polytechnic Institute Mark Rutgers University of Amsterdam and State University Richard W. Ryan, San Diego State University Anne J. Hacker, Broomtree Hermitage – Battle Dolph Santello, University of New Haven Creek, MI Elizabeth Sharpe Overman, University of Rachel Hadas, Rutgers University – Campus at Central Oklahoma Newark Lynette Shaw-Smith, Benedictine University Arie Halachmi, Tennessee State University at Springfield Lenneal Henderson, University of Baltimore James E. Storbeck, University of Texas at Candace Hetzner, Boston College Brownsville Elizabeth Hull, Rutgers University – Campus at Richard Swaim, University of Baltimore Newark Heather Wyatt-Nichol, University of Glenda Kirkland, Bloomfield College, NJ Baltimore Public Voices Editor-in-Chief Marc Holzer School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey-Campus at Newark Managing Editor Iryna Illiash School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey-Campus at Newark Book Review Editor John R. Phillips Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences Benedictine University at Springfield Volume XIII Number 1 Publisher Public Voices is published by the National Center for Public Performance at the School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA), Rutgers University-Campus at Newark. Copyright © 2013 Front Cover “Allegory of Good Government” (detail) by Ambrogio Lorenzetti, fresco, 1338. Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy. Subscriptions Subscriptions are available on a per volume basis (two issues) at the following rates: $36 per year for institutions, agencies and libraries; $24 per year for individuals; $12 for single copies and back orders. Noninstitutional subscribers can make payments by personal check or money order to: National Center for Public Performance School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) Rutgers University, Campus at Newark Center for Urban and Public Service 111 Washington Street Newark, NJ 07102-1801 All members of SHARE receive an annual subscription to Public Voices. Members of ASPA may add SHARE membership on their annual renewal form, or may send the $20 annual dues at any time to: ASPA C/o SunTrust Bank Department 41 Washington, DC 20042-0041 Electronic issues of Public Voices are available at http://spaa.newark.rutgers.edu/public-voices ISSN 1072-5660 Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1 Contents Analysis and Commentary Visions of Good Governance: Through Artists’ Eyes…………………………………………..1 Carol W. Lewis This article is designed for teaching about the importance of culture for transmitting ethical norms and beliefs. The focus is on the link between ethical behavior and political power and the allegorical representation in popular culture of ethics as a battle between good and evil. Public art most often supports the ruling regime and is intended to underwrite the rulers’ ideology and legitimacy. Three sets of murals spanning six centuries illustrate how public art communicates the epoch’s authoritative view of the ethical foundations of good governance and, conversely, the immoral basis and undesirable consequences of bad governance. The Radical Right, the National Municipal League Smear File, and the Controversy over Metropolitan Government in the United States during the Postwar Years……………………………………………………………………………………….17 John F. Brennan This paper reports on activities undertaken by the National Municipal League (NML) and the Public Administration Service (PAS) during the 1950’s and 1960’s to counter libelous and slanderous actions taken by grass roots activists in opposition to efforts to reform metropolitan governance across the United States. I utilize records from the NML archives—and give special attention to their “Smear File”—to chronicle and analyze the key events and actors. Specifically, I focus on the ideas of opponents of metropolitan government reform from the South and West in the United States including Jo Hindman, Dan Smoot, and Don Bell. These individuals used right-wing idea distribution vehicles including magazines, small-town newspapers, and subscription newsletters to disseminate their arguments and rally support for their cause. I also analyze the actions of their foes at the NML and PAS—namely those of Alfred Willoughby, Executive Director of the National Municipal League; H.G. Pope, President of the Public Administration Service; Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1 i Contents Richard S. Childs, former President of the National Municipal League; and Karl Detzer, Roving Editor for Reader’s Digest and contributing writer for the National Municipal Review, the academic and professional journal of the National Municipal League. This study adds to the literature explaining the lack of metropolitan governmental frameworks at the local level in the United States, which has been built on the work of Charles Tiebout, Vincent Ostrom, Robert Bish, Ronald Oakerson, and Roger Parks. Although this analysis is idiographic and historical in perspective, it does not necessarily challenge the core empirical results of the nomothetic modeling of these scholars. A Progressive Era Idea for Reforming Government that Didn’t Make It: Recall of Judicial Decisions………………………………………. .................................... ..58 Mordecai Lee As a reform movement and an academic discipline, American public administration generally coalesced during the Progressive era (1890-1920). Progressive reforms for the public sector seeped deeply into the DNA of the field, including separation of civil servants from politics, reliance on expertise, fewer elected offices, and public reporting of agency activities. However, not all of the governmental reforms proposed during this era were enacted. One of the most controversial and least known was Theodore Roosevelt’s proposal in 1912 that the voters be able to have a referendum on major court decisions, permitting them to overturn those decisions. His idea was only enacted in Colorado, where it remained on the books until 1921. This article reviews the original concept and its history in Colorado. The Highway Coalition Revisited: Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework to Explore the Content of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ Daily Transportation Update….………………79 Richard Watts, Russell W. Mills, and Robert Fish This paper examines the news articles selected for AASHTO’s Daily Transportation Update—an electronic news service circulated to 23,000 users each day—over a six-year period between 2006 and 2011. Using the advocacy coalition framework, the researchers argue that how an organization, in this case AASHTO, selects and aggregates news about transportation helps to shape and reinforce the dominant core beliefs of a policy subsystem. In this case study, we examine news selection in the context of an external shock—a change in presidential administrations—and two internal policy shocks—the turnover in authorizing committee leadership and the collapse of the Interstate-35W Bridge in Minnesota. We found that that the selected news articles illustrate the transportation subsystem’s core belief in motorized forms of transportation over nonmotorized forms. “Reinventing” Higher Education: Symbolism, Sloganeering, and Subjectivity in the Lone Star State………………..…………100 Staci M. Zavattaro and Terence M. Garrett The authors analyze public higher education policy in Texas during the current era of fiscal austerity in the state through Morgan’s (2006) images of organizations. Scarce ii Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1 Contents resources have led to cuts in educational funding and a refocusing of faculty work using statistical methods designed to enhance the status of teaching over research. In the name of efficiency using “reinventing government” rhetoric, politically appointed Regents and their ideological proponents in the Texas Public Policy Foundation have made attempts to turn what is commonly thought of as a public good into a consumer one. Faculty and their supporters have resisted these initiatives. The authors employ Morgan’s (2006) images of organizations as political systems, cultures, and psychic prisons as modes of understanding the conflict and lack of consensus between these affected groups. Reflections Finding My Way …………………………………………………………………………………..……120 Margaret Morrissey In this self-study, the author explores how she experiences isolation and belonging in new situations by walking and taking photographs of shadows along her commute route, the five-mile length of High Street that runs from the San Francisco Bay to the base of the Oakland Hills. Poetry Bureaucratic Adage ……………….………..……………………………………………………….132 Yonel Pierre Movie Review Won't Back Down Misfires on Parent Trigger, but Gets the Politics, Organizations Right ……………………………..134 Reviewed by Robert Maranto This essay briefly discusses recent American films about urban public schools, citing research to suggest that the genre accurately captures the dysfunctions of many schools as bureaucracies. This sets up a lengthy review of the most talked about education drama of 2012, Won’t Back Down. On its artistic merits, Won’t Back Down is something of an after school special, with great acting wasted in the service of a melodramatic script. The education policy instrument portrayed, the “parent trigger” enabling parents to take over dysfunctional schools, has questionable utility. That said, the movie captures non- responsive bureaucracies, school boards indifferent to the interests of children, how bureaucrats can make activist parents and teachers pay a heavy price, and the sort of organizing tactics that can outlast the educational establishment. Most notably, the film Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1 iii Contents excels at explaining the tactics and motivations of union leaders and members. In short, while it fails as a work of art, Won’t Back Down works as work of social science, exploring dilemmas of bureaucracy and democracy. Art Exhibit Review Review of Rise and Fall of Apartheid: Photography and the Bureaucracy of Everyday Life ………………………………………143 Reviewed by Jonathan Woolley Teaching Case Studies The Unreal Administrator’s Case Studies: Lessons and Challenges from Poems, Novels, Movies, Television, and Other Stuff Series Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………147 Kenneth Nichols Case Study #1: A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner………………………………….…150 In “A Rose for Emily,” Faulkner discusses the relationship of the individual and the community. So assume, for the time being, that you live in a modest town, possibly in Yoknapatawpha County somewhere in rural America. Not only are you a long-time member of the community, but you are also one of the several people who keep the town government operating smoothly. You might be the town’s clerk, its manager, or its mayor. Those townspeople are your friends and your neighbors as well as the public that you serve. The era might be the early 1900s, as it is here in “A Rose for Emily;” in certain respects, however, it could almost be today. Now with that frame of reference in mind, read William Faulkner’s short story. Case Study #2: The Mask of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe……………………….165 Every era has had its scourge, contagion, pestilence, or plague. And every age has had to deal with those problems in the best way it could at the time. Edgar Allan Poe creates for us a leader whose method of “dealing” was, at best, ill-considered. Case Study #3: When I Was a Lad and Modern Major-General………………………177 “When I Was a Lad” is from H.M.S. Pinafore, a nineteenth century British operetta by William S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan. It’s sung by a man who has become “the ruler of the Queen’s Navy.” Through the song, he tells about his climb to success. “I Am the iv Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1 Contents Very Model of a Modern Major-General” is from Pirates of Penzance. Sung by the major-general, it extols his many qualifications and hints at his ambition. Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operas often involved political satire, and this is the case with both of these songs. Both songs describe the talents, experience, qualifications of a government official. Both songs poke fun of officials and their self-importance. Both songs point to the benefit of having a broad, generalist education for higher-level positions. And both songs make the point that public officials need appropriate qualifications and experience. But the characters singing these songs display many differences as well, and very different outlooks on how to succeed. As you follow the lyrics, what do you make of the two gentlemen? Who would you want to work for? Who would you want working for you? Dear Public Voices Readers, If you’d like to share your thoughts on the material you read in our journal, please write to: Iryna Illiash Editor’s Letter, Public Voices [email protected] To join SHARE’s listserve, please write to Mike Miller at [email protected] Public Voices Vol. XIII No. 1 v