 |
Professor
of
Politics
Ph.D. 1973 (political science), M.A. 1968 (political science), Harvard; B.A. 1966 (political science), Amherst College.
Email:
Phone:
(212) 998-8540
Office Address:
NYU Department of Politics, 19 W. 4th Street, New York, NY 10012
Office Room Number:
209
For a full list of my work, see my
Vita.
|
Areas of Research/Interest: American politics and policy making; social policy, especially anti-poverty programs and the politics surrounding them; welfare and welfare reform; work requirements in welfare and the implementation of welfare employment programs; implementation research and public policy analysis; public policy as a field in political science.
About Me: I teach American politics and public policy. My approach is to use major policy issues to understand government. That is, I link policy analysis to political analysis. I ask first how government should handle some difficult issue, and then how it actually does. The difference reveals much about the character of a regime, and the potential for change. I think political science should be what the ancients intended—a master science that helps government improve the human condition.Much of my research has been about poverty and welfare in America. In several books, I argued that requiring adult recipients to work was the best way to reform welfare. That case had unexpected influence. I became the leading theorist of welfare reform here and abroad. However, I am equally interested in why enforcing work is difficult for government. Government Matters, my study of welfare reform in Wisconsin, won the Brownlow Book Award given by the National Academy of Public Administration.
My Current Work: I continue to study social problems where the potential both to illuminate government and improve policy are great. I am now working on how to extend work requirements from welfare mothers to poor men. Welfare Reform and Political Theory, a recent edited volume, explores the implications of reform for citizenship and democracy.I also have a project on how the welfare issue has been framed in Congress from the 1960s through the 1990s. Results show the issue becoming less partisan over time. This is the first study of the intellectual basis of any issue in Congress over so long a period. In a recent course, I surveyed 16 different theories for explaining American primacy in the world. My approach looks much further back in history than international relations usually does. America is powerful, not only because it is democratic and capitalist, but because it is the child of Britain and Europe. I eventually plan to write a book setting forth this argument.
Select Publications:
The New Paternalism: Supervisory Approaches to Poverty, ed. Washington, DC. Brookings. 1997.
The New Politics of Poverty: The Nonworking Poor in America. Basic Books. 1992.
Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship. Free Press. 1986.
Fellowships/Honors: Policy Council, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, 1999-2000; John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs and Company Visiting Professor, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 1994-1995; Visiting Professor of Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1993-1994; Visiting Distinguished Professor, La Follette Institute of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Spring 1987.
External Affiliations: American Political Science Association, Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management, Policy Studies Organization, American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy.
|
