by Jeremy Loudenback At the Bedrosian Center’s Lunch with a Leader program last week, Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Doane Liu recalled with pride how he first got a taste for public service. As a San Pedro resident, he helped broker a deal in the mid-1990s that turned surplus land in San Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback In the 2008 presidential campaign, the much more prominent use of social media by Barack Obama’s campaign served to highlight his relevance and forward-looking perspective. But by 2012, the social-media gap had narrowed sharply, with Twitter and other social media becoming a contentious political battlefield for candidates from Read more…
by Justine Dodgen Last week, the Bedrosian Center hosted Professor Edward Kleinbard of Gould Law School to discuss his new book, We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend our Money. In our conversation, Kleinbard, students, and fellow faculty discussed the themes of federal government spending and how fiscal policy Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback As California ponders the shape of its future, nothing underscores the current challenges of urban development more than the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Since its passage in 1970, CEQA has remained at the heart of many battles over development, with local governments, environmentalists, developers, and community groups Read more…
Conversations about governance, policy, and leadership December 9, 2014 12:00pm to 1:30pm Lunch with a Leader provides students with the opportunity to hear ideas from local, state, and national leaders as well as share their ideas and gain inspiration for effective governance in an enjoyable, informal setting. Doane Liu, Deputy Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Worst in Governance Missouri Governor Jay Nixon That courts in Ferguson, MO, and New York failed to indict police officers in the recent deaths of two unarmed African-American men was sadly a surprise to very few. The last few months have shown that the list of unarmed Black men Read more…
by Jeremy Loudenback Best in Governance Maryland Health Benefit Exchange Board In October of last year, Maryland was poised to roll out its health insurance exchange as part of the implementation of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA). Hopes were high that the state would be able to serve the almost Read more…
by Justine Dodgen Doane Liu, Deputy Mayor of the City of Los Angeles, is no stranger to local government. Liu, the first deputy mayor appointed by Mayor Eric Garcetti of the four in his administration, oversees 15 city departments that directly impact our neighborhoods, including Water and Power, Transportation, Public Read more…
Edward Kleinbard on How Government SHOULD Spend Our Money December 2, 2014 1:30pm to 3:00pm Transcript Join the Bedrosian Center in a conversation with Edward D. Kleinbard about his new book We Are Better Than This: How Government Should Spend Our Money. Kleinbard is the Johnson Professor of Law and Business at the USC Gould School of Read more…
by Justine Dodgen Two years ago, 92nd Street Y Executive Director Henry Timms came up with an idea. To maintain the spirit of Thanksgiving in a culture that has been overrun by Black Friday and Cyber Monday, he started Giving Tuesday, a day dedicated to giving back to our communities. Giving Read more…
by Peter Robertson
The shift from the modern industrial era into the new, post-modern Information Age presents contemporary society with a rather significant paradox. On one hand, there is fairly widespread agreement that the governmental apparatus established to implement public policies – the bureaucracy – is not very efficient or effective. On the other, there is equally widespread belief that bureaucracy is necessary in order to successfully implement those policies. We are stuck in something of a love/hate, “can’t live with it, can’t live without it” dilemma when it comes to the presence of the large bureaucratic systems, at all levels of government, that are critical to the actual delivery of services that constitute the ultimate operationalization of legislative dictates.
This paradox is not new, although the dilemma it presents has become more pressing as the societal transition into a new era proceeds. Significant backlash to the dysfunctional features of bureaucracy emerged as early as the 1950s, when proponents of a more humanistic approach to organizational design began articulating how bureaucratic structures and processes could be revised to take into account the higher-order needs (i.e., self-esteem and self-actualization, in Maslow’s hierarchy) of the people working in bureaucratic organizations. To a considerable extent, the slow but steady evolution of this organizational form since that time has reflected the gradual integration of some of those ideas into our collective understanding about the best ways to manage organizations. These changes have been further stimulated by the dynamics of globalization, the diffusion of information/communication technology, and the differences among succeeding generations of workers. Taken together, the reforms over the last half-century can be seen as leading to a transformation in the bureaucratic organizational form itself, as it evolves into a new form more appropriate for the demands of a new era. (more…)