Michael R. Fitzgerald

Recognition and Productivity Among American Political Science Departments

OCIAL SCIENTISTS have displayed only a limited interest in science as a ~~~ system of knowledge and behavior, and what analysis has been done focuses S primarily on the work of natural scientists.1 In recent years, however, sociologists have begun to study systematically the process of discovery and dissemination of knowledge within their particular discipline. Political scientists, on the other hand, have not been especially self-conscious about the nature of their professional activities. As a past president of the American Political Science Association remarked in his 1971 presidential address, &dquo;it is surprising how little we know about

Practicing the Politics of Inclusion: Citizen Surveys and the Design of Solid Waste Recycling Programs:

This study presents a framework for applying and interpreting citizen surveys to formulate community recycling programs. Viewed as a coproduced service, a recycling programs success depends on strong and sustained public support and participation. We find that knowing citizen opinions and attitudes toward recycling can help public managers maximize citizen participation in recycling. This analysis supports the value of conducting citizen opinion surveys as part of the recycling program design. Furthermore, such surveys are useful management tools for learning local opinions and attitudes that can be used to improve program design and sustain citizen participation in a community recycling program.

Social structures for the enhancement of scientific information in urban policy-making and management

Abstract The inability of municipal governments to exploit available information resources is viewed as a significant contributor to urban crisis. Often information problems may be attributed to ‘information overload’, but one type information, scientific information, is less commonly available to urban administrators. The problems associated with acquiring and using scientific information are reviewed and possible remedies to those problems are discussed. A tentative model of scientific information use by urban administrators is advanced and suggestions are provided for redesigning organizations and reallocating resources so as to enhance the flow of scientific information in urban administration.

Changing Patterns of Urban School Desegregation: A Comparative Analysis

wenty years have elapsed since the Supreme Court, in TBrown 1 and 2 (1954; 1955) ordered school districts in the South to desegregate. During that time not only have enormous changes come about among southern states, but the whole de jure and de facto distinction has blurred so that many northern school districts now find themselves under court order to desegregate. As would be expected given the obvious far-reaching consequences of such change, social scientists have found the school desegregation process of special interest. Growing attention, for example, is being paid to why desegregation has had greater success in some places than in others. No doubt the impact of the federal government has been of immense importance. But federal power has limits; it may be more effective under certain conditions or in certain areas than in others. Even with federal pressure, other forces undoubtedly contribute to the effectiveness or lack thereof of the implementation of school desegregation policies. The analysis to follow attempts to unravel the various forces contributing to the recent changes in

Desegregating Urban Schools A Causal Perspective

Two models of desegregation change between 1968 and 1974 for a number of U.S. urban school districts are tested using a block-recursive technique incorporating the effects of community environment, the school system, and federal influence. The models can explain a considerable amount of change in the North but much less in the South. In both regions, federal intervention is a dominant influence, although for one model in the North, the earlier year level of desegregation is the most powerful effect.

Media Images of Environmental Biotechnology: What does the Public See?

Environmental biotechnology, as a method for effective and economical treatment of hazardous wastes, is one of the most recent applications of biotechnology to a major societal problem. Research and development in this area continues apace, though fundamental policy questions relating to the successful transfer of technology from laboratories to the private sector remain unanswered. How, and to what extent the government should regulate environmental biotechnology, and educate and inform the public are critical issues that public policy makers must address.

Articulating Environmental Policy Decision to the Public

Relations between policy makers (as well as other public officials) and the media are a crucial, but often neglected, element of public management. In this article, the authors seek to illuminate the relationship between public policy and the mass media by focusing on how policy matters are communicated, while emphasizing the important role played by public officials in this communication process. Recommendations thus ensue as to how public managers can more effectively disseminate information about environmental policies to a diverse, and often hostile, clientele which public policy makers and managers must be prepared to engage.

From Administration to Oversight: Privatization and its Aftermath in a Southern City

Nearly forty years ago R. M. MacIver (1947, p. 315) observed that ‘the tasks undertaken by government are dictated by changing conditions, and governments on the whole are more responsive than creative in fulfilling them’. Nowhere in United States political history is the accuracy of MacIver’s observation more apparent than among our municipalities. The colonial city, based upon a charter granted by the royal governor, or the proprietor, of the colony in which it was located, had very few governmental functions. They could maintain the peace, adjudicate disputes, own and manage property, sue and be sued, and own and manage municipal enterprises; but throughout the colonial period city government ‘had not too much to do’ and spent very little (Winter, 1969, p. 60). The escalating pace and impact of nineteenth century urbanization, industrialization, and massive immigration generated conditions, however, that overwhelmed municipalities. Their initial attempts to ameliorate, if not control or even in some sense direct, the multitude of problems attendant to explosive urban growth and deteriorating city conditions, involved faltering efforts to supervise private sector service delivery through contracts and extension of franchises.