Jameson W. Doig

Leadership and innovation in the administrative state

The field of public administration, as well as the social science upon which it is based, has given little serious attention to the importance of vigorous leadership by career as well as non-career public administrators. The field tends to focus on the rigidities of political behavior and the obstacles to change. To reclaim an understanding of the importance of individual leadership the author suggests the use of biography and life history. The behavior and personality of the entrepreneur is an especially helpful perspective on the connection between leadership and organizational or institutional innovation. The case of Julius Henry Cohen, who played a pivotal role in the development of the New York Port Authority, is used to illustrate the connection between the entrepreneurial personality or perspective and innovation. In the social sciences—and especially in the study of American political institutions—primary attention is given to the role of interest groups and to bureaucratic routines and other inst...

Regional Conflict in the New York Metropolis: the Legend of Robert Moses and the Power of the Port Authority

ROBERT MOSES IN OPPOSITION TO THE PNYA ON AIRPORTPORT ADMINISTRATION (LATE 1940S), CONSTRUCTION OF MANHATTAN BUS TERMINAL (1947) AND HIGHWAY EXPANSION (1953-54)

Review essay / corruption control and its critics

Frank Anechiarico and James B. Jacobs, The Pursuit of Absolute Integrity: How Corruption Control Makes Government Ineffective Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996, 274 pp.

Progressivism as Regional Planning: The Politics of Efficiency at the Port of New York

The traditional view of the 1920s as a decade of economic avarice, political corruption, and self-indulgence has been replaced by a more nuanced interpretation. Innovative approaches to the use of governmental power which thrived in the Progressive era were carried forward into the Age of Normalcy, and new dimensions were added, sometimes with quite interesting results. Moreover, the ideas and institutions tested in the 1920s were then at hand for expanded use and further modification in the next cycle of major reform, in the 1930s.

America’s Leading International Trade Centers and their Entrepreneurial Agencies

This is a comparative and historical analysis of the trade-development challenges that face the New York and Los Angeles areas, where more than one-third of all international U.S. airborne and waterborne trade (measured by value) enters and leaves this country. These two regions historically developed different governance systems for their airports, seaports and freight-rail systems, dating back to the early 1900s. New York has a centralized system for its air and sea terminals, featuring the bi-state Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Los Angeles has a highly decentralized system with semi-autonomous city departments in Los Angeles and Long Beach governing the seaports and international airports. The Los Angeles region’s freight-rail is governed by public/private joint-powers agreements, while New York’s is largely private. What impact have these different governance systems had on trade, infrastructure, and regional development? How have the regions grappled with challenges such as the hard times of the 1930s, the early 1990s, and the current economic downturn? Can these metropolitan areas manage the expected trade growth while dealing with increasingly strict environmental regulations, the greater costs imposed by post-9/11 security concerns, and newly empowered local communities? The entrepreneurial agencies discussed in this paper will occupy a major role in meeting these challenges, which will require greater levels of cooperation among these and other public and private entities. Does the multi-functional approach of the Port Authority place it in a stronger position to manage the challenges of the early 21st century? If so, how can such a large, complex agency balance burdens and benefits, and maintain accountability to its different constituencies? Does Los Angeles need more bureaucracy and less democracy? With wholesale governance changes more or less off the table, how can public officials in that region overcome their endemic fractionalization to serve the greater good? In their varying structures and range of responsibilities, these major entrepreneurial agencies illustrate distinctive ways in which large regions can design and operate transportation networks, as cities and states grapple with economic-development needs in a global environment. Their successes (and failures), and the opportunities and obstacles they face, should offer useful lessons to other cities and regions around the world. This paper is divided into three sections. The first part examines the early 20th century creation of these public agencies and their major projects and development through 1990. The second section explores the mounting challenges to these agencies and their trade facilities, 1990-2009. The final section considers strategies needed to grapple with long-term challenges, including competitive threats from rival trading regions, the need to handle expanding air and sea traffic, security issues, and environmental concerns. We address these questions using original source materials, interviews with part and current officials and stakeholders, and statistical analyses of regional trade, traffic and economic data.

Politics and Urban Development: The Case of the New York Region1

water supply are polluted and reclaimed. These and other characteristics of urban development are found in every major metropolitan region in the United States. And the basic features differ little in other advanced, industrial societies.2 The patterns of development which characterize the modern metropolis are the product of the complex and continuing interactions of geographic, technological, economic, political, and other social factors which constantly mold and alter the urban scene. Our central concern is with the role of governmental organizations in shaping urbon development in relatively modernized societies. More specifically : To what extent do the actions of governmental organizations serve as a significant independent force, rather than having no significant role, or affecting development only by ratifying and supporting decisions made in other subsystems of the society, such as the private marketplace? By governmental organizations, we mean those organizations which authoritatively allocate values (i.e., make binding rules) for a society, and which are primarily oriented toward this function, together with subordinate units of such organizations.3 3