Steven Cohen

The future of e-government: a project of potential trends and issues

The purpose of this paper is to project the trends and issues that will arise over the next decade as e-government develops and matures. When government acts to innovate and implement new ideas and technologies, issues arise that are common to all organizations, such as the costs and benefits of adopting new technologies, and the effect of technologies on productivity and customer service. This project will include a projection of the effect of e-government on customer service and productivity. However, government differs from private and nonprofit organizations in important ways, due to politics and media scrutiny. For that reason issues other than productivity and customer service must be analyzed. This project explores and projects potential uses of the Web for: government-to-government interaction; procurement; citizen participation including public comment, instant random sample surveying, and even voting; education; and lobbying and interest group interaction with government.

Trends in 20th Century United States Government Ethics

As the twentieth century comes to a close, ethics is returning to the public sector reform agenda. Just as it was at the turn of this century the current focus is on the administrative branch of government. Then, as now, scandals involving elected officials prompted the reform initiatives. However, today there is far less consensus on the most appropriate elements of the reform agenda, perhaps reflecting a century of less than successful ethically-driven reforms.

Ethics and the Public Administrator

This article provides an overview and analysis of the practical problems of developing and implementing a code of ethics for public administrators. The article addresses three key issues: (1) What are public ethics and where do they come from? (2) What are the central ethical issues facing public administrators? and (3) Are there practical tools and guidelines to assist public servants to be both ethical and effective public managers? The article concludes with a plea for consideration of ethical issues, and it presents five general ethical principles for public administrators.

Climate Change 2011: A Status Report on US Policy

A growing partisan divide in Congress stalled almost all new federal climate policy in 2011. The divide frustrated efforts to pass a cap-and-trade carbon permitting system, spawned a battle between the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Congress, pushed most substantive climate change policy down to the municipal level and hindered US ability to effectively negotiate an international climate agreement. Amid the federal partisan wrangling, US cities have enacted far-sighted climate policy initiatives, and the growing cost of fossil fuels has stimulated investment in renewable energy, edging the country closer to commercially viable alternatives to fossil fuels. These trends could help provide an alternate route to climate mitigation, even without international treaties or national legislation. But the inevitable shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources would be greatly hastened by federal action to tax carbon dioxide emissions and use the revenue generated to support alternative energy technologies. That action is extremely unlikely to occur unless climate change comes to be seen in the United States as a practical, rather than ideological, issue.

The Overregulated Civil Service

best people, reward top performers and terminate those who are unwilling or unable to do their jobs. Specifically, our research was directed at identifying methods to increase agency flexibility in hiring and deployment of personnel, simplify compensation, promotion and reward procedures and making it easier to fire poor performers. Based on our research and interviews with a variety of civil service participants and experts, we concluded that the New York City civil service system needs drastic reform in the areas

America Works' Criminal Justice Program: Providing Second Chances Through Work

This report presents a case study of a new program developed by America Works, Incorporated, to assist released prisoners reenter the world of work. The report describes the substantial problem presented by America’s growing prison population, and the related challenge to society by released prisoners. The costs and benefits of programs to train ex-convicts for jobs are discussed. Finally, a profile of America Works and its efforts to assist released prisoners is provided. The paper concludes that the America Works program has been effective in finding private sector employment for ex-offenders.

Life Cycle Assessment and the U.S. Policy-Making Context

Environmental policy makers use life cycle assessment (LCA) to reduce scientific uncertainties about the environmental impact of technologies and products. However, the structure of the U.S. policymaking system often acts as a roadblock to the use of LCA outputs in decision making. Over the past two decades/life cycle assessment has had limited impact in determining U.S. environmental policy, either as a specific quantitative indicator or as a general outlook toward the environment. In this chapter, I discuss specific characteristics of the U.S. political system, which often make uncertainty-reducing assessments like life cycle assessment fail in a decision-making context: the incremental nature of the U.S. policy-making system; the

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR DEVOLVING RESPONSABILITY AND FUNCTIONS FROM GOVERNMENT TO THE PRIVATE SECTOR

This document presents a conceptual framework and a method for deciding whether or not a function that was considered the responsibility of government should be performed by public organizations or devolved to private for-profit and non-profit organizations. This conceptual framework goes beyond ideology and matches functions to organizational capacity, in a scheme that needs strategic thinking. The method requires that government managers resist bias and simplistic assumptions and answer a number of critical questions that require for the experience and judgment of decision makers, as well as for the political and social context in which the decision takes place.

Ethical Public Entrepreneurship: Common Dilemmas from North and South America

Abstract Public administration scholars and practitioners differ widely in their views regarding the ethical risks of entrepreneurial behavior and decisionmaking in the public sector. This article examines three cases, two from the United States and one from Colombia, which highlight the ethical issues raised when governments use the entrepreneurial tools of competition, privatization, and contracting out. Issues of job loss, favoritism, corruption, poor performance, and limited access to services often accompany the process of privatization/outsourcing. The political, legal, and economic problems in the Latin American context are somewhat different from those in North America, reflecting varying policy objectives and cultural and institutional contexts. The ethical dilemmas faced, however, are substantially the same. Several principles are suggested to guide public administrators through entrepreneurial ventures, including the need to take individual responsibility for the process and its consequences (past, present, and future), as well as the need for a heightened emphasis on thorough analysis and professional competence as an ethical imperative.

A positive vision of sustainability

Growing population, increased urbanization, a growing global economy, and increased use of natural resources have created a demand for sustainability. Sustainability is an interdisciplinary field that requires collaboration from multiple perspectives. The planet’s resources are all being used at a ferocious pace. Energy is at the center of this issue; dependence on fossil fuels is causing extensive damage to ecosystems and public health and is a major cause of global climate change. The goal of a renewable resource-based economy is therefore important for the future, but rather than attacking the fossil fuel industry, it should be achieved through a positive vision of sustainability—one that includes the need to invest in basic and applied science of renewable energy in order to make renewables cheaper than fossil fuels. We will discuss the opportunities in sustainability-focused education and research that are needed for the transition to a renewable economy. We will also discuss the trend toward urbanization and the opportunities that exist in urban areas to close the cycle of production and consumption. Not only does most of the world’s population live in cities, but cities are paving the path toward a sustainable future. All of these factors contribute to a positive and creative vision of sustainability that focuses on building something new and clean rather than defeating something old and dirty.