New Books In Public Policy

American healthcare is in crisis. It doesn’t have to be. Dr. Toby Cosgrove‘s The Cleveland Clinic Way: Lessons in Excellence from One of the World’s Leading Health Care Organizations (McGraw-Hill Education, 2014) is a blueprint for fixing what’s wrong with healthcare―and is a must-read for every leader seeking to transform his or her organization. There’s a revolution going on right now. On the frontiers of medicine, some doctors have developed an approach for treating people that is more effective, more humane, and more affordable. It’s an approach to healthcare that has captured the attention of the media and business elite–and the President of the United States. It’s all happening at Cleveland Clinic, one of the most innovative, forward-looking medical institutions in the nation. In this groundbreaking book, the man who leads this global organization, Cosgrove reveals how the Clinic works so well and argues persuasively for why it should be the model for the nation. He details how Cleveland Clinic focus

The Future of University Credentials: New Developments at the Intersection of Higher Education and Hiring (Harvard Education Press, 2016) offers a thorough and urgently needed overview of the burgeoning world of university degrees and credentials. At a time of heightened attention to how universities and colleges are preparing young people for the working world, questions about the meaning and value of university credentials have become especially prominent. Sean R. Gallagher, EdD, guides us through this fast-changing terrain, providing much-needed context, details, and insights. The book casts a wide net, focusing on traditional higher education degrees and on the myriad certificates and other postsecondary awards that universities and other institutions now issue. He describes the entire ecosystem of credentials, including universities and colleges, employers, government agencies, policy makers and influencers—and, not least, the students whose futures are profoundly affected by these certifications. And h

Stephen Riley, a lecturer in the Law School of the University of Leicester in Britain, has written a philosophical work examining the concept of dignity and its role in legal theory and, to a degree, the application of law.  In Human Dignity and Law: Legal and Philosophical Investigations (Routledge, 2018), Riley argues that the role of human dignity should be recognized by courts and all of society, but he is wary of such a concept becoming a trump card in a court’s decision-making process.  He notes that the concerns of justice and equality need to be recognized by courts but court must be aware of the infrequent instances when the demands of dignity are in conflict with the demands of justice.  In this podcast we discuss the definition of human dignity, the author’s philosophical orientation, and the applications of the concept of dignity has been applied by courts in different settings. Ian J. Drake is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Law at Montclair State University. His scholarly inte

The Spanish flu of 1918-1920 was one of the greatest human disasters of all time. It infected a third of the people on Earth–from the poorest immigrants of New York City to the king of Spain, Franz Kafka, Mahatma Gandhi and Woodrow Wilson. But despite a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people, it exists in our memory as an afterthought to World War I. In this gripping narrative history, Laura Spinney traces the overlooked pandemic to reveal how the virus travelled across the globe, exposing mankind’s vulnerability and putting our ingenuity to the test. As socially significant as both world wars, the Spanish flu dramatically disrupted–and often permanently altered–global politics, race relations and family structures, while spurring innovation in medicine, religion and the arts. It was partly responsible, Spinney argues, for pushing India to independence, South Africa to apartheid and Switzerland to the brink of civil war. It also created the true “lost generation.” Drawing on the latest research in h

Autism as a condition has received much focused attention recently, but less attention has been paid to its politics. It is a condition that necessitates significant accommodations and interventions, which can be difficult for people with autism and their loved ones to obtain, depending on the state of autism public policy. Sociologist John J. Pitney argues that political science needs to more rigorously study autism policy and politics, as he outlines in his book The Politics of Autism: Navigating the Contested Spectrum (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). In our interview, we explore the evolution of our understanding of autism, how public policy impacts the lives of autistic individuals, and suggestions for future research. For anyone with autism or their loves ones, this interview offers suggestions for meeting important needs and hope for a better future. John J. Pitney Jr., Ph.D. is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author of The Art of Political Warfare

What kind of barriers and risks do single parents face? In their new book, The Triple Bind of Single-Parent Families: Resources, Employment and Policies to Improve Well-Being (Policy Press, 2018), editors Rense Nieuwenhuis and Laurie C. Maldonado argue that understanding inadequate resources, employment, and policies matter for understanding single-parent families. They refer to these as the “Triple Bind.” Part One explores resources, including exploring education, wealth gaps, and school settings. Other chapters in this section also explore how single-parenthood is often a transitory phase and the importance of co-parenting. Part Two explored inadequate employment and starts with an important chapter about taking a life course perspective when researching single-parents. The chapters in this section also tackle income transfers, paid parental leave, and other workplace characteristics. Part Three focuses on redistributive policies, including cash benefits, universal vs. targeted polices, daycare, and minimum

In Schoolhouse Wreck: The Betsy DeVos Story (Strong Arm Press, 2018), Jason Linkins delivers a searing critique of controversial Trump administration Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. The book tracks the DeVos family’s accumulation of wealth through the multi-level marketing company Amway, which was founded by her Betsy DeVos’ father-in-law, and the family’s subsequent forays into philanthropy and Michigan Republican politics. Linkins offers a harsh assessment of her push for charter schools in Michigan, and argues she is determined to lower the firewall between church and state in America’s schools. He also explores her record in the federal government, contended she has sided with unscrupulous for-profit colleges and private student lenders at the expense of students. But while the public perception of DeVos is one of an incompetent, Linkins concludes DeVos is a savvy political operator with deep convictions who should not be underestimated. Bill Scher is a Contributing Editor for POLITICO Magazine. He

In Curated Decay: Heritage Beyond Saving (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), geographer Caitlin DeSilvey offers a set of alternatives to those who would assign a misplaced solidity to historic buildings and landscapes in order then to “preserve” or “conserve” them. DeSilvey reimagines processes of material decay, which always intermingle natural and cultural landscapes, as more animate, eventful, productive, and worthy of affirmation than prevailing practice would have it. Her narrative wends through Montana, Vermont, Germany’s Ruhr Valley, and numerous English sites, each of them rendered at close range, in lithe, sometimes experimental prose. Through these encounters, and with a remarkably light touch, she thinks in a key recognizable alongside, but never subservient to, many strands of recent geographic thought on the force or vitality of nonhuman matter. Curated Decay is an ethical intervention, too, posing difficult questions about vulnerability, rights, care, repair, maintenance, and how we might bet

The use of our data and the privacy, or lack thereof, that we have when we go online has become a topic of increasing importance as technology becomes ubiquitous and more sophisticated. Governments, advocacy groups and individual citizens are demanding that action be taken to protect their valuable data. But what does this sporadic noise amount to? B.J. Mendelson in his book Privacy: And How to Get It Back (Curious Reads, 2017) argues that a complacent citizenry and the overly-intimate relationship that corporations have with government has led to massive breaches of people’s privacy. Mendelson humorously explains the way people’s data is used and abused as he tracks the long history of government surveillance leading to an explanation of, what he believes, could be the solution to the abuse of people’s privacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christy Ford Chapin, an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, has written a history of the funding of America’s health care system: Ensuring America’s Health: The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Care System (Cambridge University Press, 2015).  She begins with an account of the development of physicians’ practices in the mid-nineteenth century and traces the evolution of the American Medical Association’s role in shaping how physicians practiced medicine and how it was financed.  The advent of the insurance model for funding health care was a creation of the Progressive period and became dominant in the late 1930s, during the New Deal.  Chapin provides an account of the pitfalls of the insurance funding mechanism and recounts the battles between vested, competing interests, such as the AMA, independent physicians, corporate employers, labor unions, insurance companies (nonprofit and commercial), and the state and federal governments.  Each of these entities sha

The Americans with Disability Act passed in 1990, but it was just one moment in ongoing efforts to craft the meaning and practice of “good design” that put people with disabilities at the center. In their new book, Building Access: Universal Design and the Politics of Disability (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), Aimi Hamraie takes a “sledgehammer to history” in the spirit of one guerrilla activist group that they track in the archives—among many other people, objects, and historical contexts. Hamraie focuses on work around “access-knowledge”—that is, the forms of expertise that were considered legitimate ways of knowing and responding to disability through design. What has counted as legitimate access-knowledge, Hamraie argues, indicates designers’ goals: Was the aim of design to make productive workers, liberal consumers, or structures that materialized a commitment to spacial belonging? Who were the imagined users and how could new political priorities materialize in worlds already built? Answers to th

The United States leads the world in incarceration. That’s a problem, especially the disproportionate impact of “mass incarceration” on low-income men of color. In their new book Start Here: A Roadmap to Reducing Mass Incarceration (The New Press, 2018), Greg Berman and Julian Adler take us though a series of concrete, practical, and practicable steps that we could take to radically reduce the number of people we incarcerate while, at the same time, making our communities healthier and safer. Listen in. Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics and Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A People’s History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford University Press, 2017). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do we create meaning after the genome? Such a profound question is at the center of the recently published book by Jenny Reardon, The Postgenomic Condition: Ethics, Knowledge and Justice after the Genome (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Drawing upon nearly a hundred interviews including with genetic scientists, social scientists, activists, lawyers and policy makers, Reardon constructs an engaging story detailing accounts of genomic projects from several field sites around the globe. Beyond her ethnographic accounts, Reardon engages with historical antecedents, such as the infamous Tuskegee study and the following Belmont Report, as well as philosophical discussions and insights from the likes of Hannah Arendt and Jean François Lyotard. The result is a reconsideration of genomics in a society vexed by inequality, and a push toward matters of science and justice. Following the completion of the Human Genome Project, many subsequent genomic related projects (such as the Human Genome Diversity Project,

Most people say they would like to die quietly at home. But overly aggressive medical advice, coupled with an unrealistic sense of invincibility or overconfidence in our health-care system, results in the majority of elderly patients misguidedly dying in institutions. Many undergo painful procedures instead of having the better and more peaceful death they deserve. At Peace: Choosing a Good Death After a Long Life (Grand Central Life & Style, 2018) outlines specific active and passive steps that older patients and their health-care proxies can take to ensure loved ones live their last days comfortably at home and/or in hospice when further aggressive care is inappropriate. Through Dr. Samuel Harrington’s own experience with the aging and deaths of his parents and of working with patients, he describes the terminal patterns of the six most common chronic diseases; how to recognize a terminal diagnosis even when the doctor is not clear about it; how to have the hard conversation about end-of-life wishes; how t

Earlier this year, Jamila Michener visited the podcast to talk about her new book, Fragmented Democracy, about Medicaid and the state-based structure that results in very different experiences of Medicaid recipients from state to state. We return to the topic of health care this week. Jonathan Engel has recently written Unaffordable: American Healthcare from Johnson to Trump (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018). Engel is a professor in the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College and an adjunct professor of health policy and management at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. In Unaffordable, we read a fifty-year history of the adoption of a variety of health care programs, from Medicare to Obamacare. Engel unravels the implications of health policy design for the delivery of services. He pays particular attention to the ways that health policy design have resulted in rising health care costs and the unaffordability of health care for many Americans. This podcast was hosted by Heath

It is possible that you did not know that you need a comprehensive labor market analysis of the New York City Parks Department, but John Krinsky and Maud Simonet, in their new book, Who Cleans the Park? Public Works and Urban Governance in New York City (University of Chicago Press, 2017), show that you do. Join us as we talk with Krinsky about what this wildly segmented labor force tells us about work, workers, and workplaces today (not to mention race, sexual harassment, and real estate). The answer to “Who Cleans the Park?” is, in fact, much more complicated — and much more important — than you might think. Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics and Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A People’s History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford

Lawrence Halprin, one of the central figures in twentieth-century American landscape architecture, is well known to city-watchers for his work on San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square, Seattle’s Freeway Park, downtown Portland’s open-space sequence, the FDR Memorial on the National Mall, and the California planned community of Sea Ranch. Less well known is his distinctive, process-based approach to design—his theoretical commitment, on the one hand, to a dynamic “choreography” of bodies moving through space, and, on the other, the visually arresting notational techniques of “scoring” he devised to represent such movement and carry out his projects in consultation with the public. In City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America (University of Minnesota Press, 2014), Alison Bick Hirsch addresses Halprin’s built work and community workshops in equal measure, pointing up important tensions that his participatory “Take Part Process” never quite extinguished: between manipulation and facilitation, uni

How does the juvenile justice system impact the lives of the young people that go through it? In her new book, Trapped in a Vice: The Consequences of Confinement for Young People (Rutgers University Press, 2018), Alexandra Cox uses interviews and ethnographic data to analyze the juvenile justice system and incarceration. While the book focuses specifically on New York’s justice system, the take-aways and Cox’s analyses are relevant for anyone interested in incarceration in general. Using the voices and experiences of those she interviews to articulate her findings, Cox points out that young people often suffer the most in systems of social inequality. She elaborates clearly on concepts and main take-aways through the book, from the idea that these young people are expected to mature within an institution, and how this impacts their development. Cox uses really powerful examples and pinpoints important concepts for us to think further about: the definition of worthiness (i.e. worthy of “saving”), being ungover

Most everything Americans eat today comes out of cans. Some of it emerges from the iconic steel cylinders and much of the rest from the mammoth processed food empire the canning industry pioneered. Historian Anna Zeide, in Canned: The Rise and Fall of Consumer Confidence in the American Food Industry (University of California Press, 2018), carefully traces how canners convinced a nation of consumers who ate little but seasonal, fresh food to dare to crack open an opaque container of unknown origins and put its contents into their bodies. The feat required reshaping everything from federal regulatory practices and the makeup of academic faculties to the way food was advertised and the genetic composition of peas. When the canning industry has seen its hard-won reputation for providing a wholesome staple of American pantries come under attack from consumer groups and environmentalists starting in the 1960s and 70s, it has doubled down on its techniques of obfuscation, brand burnishing, and regulatory capture. F

In Children of Reunion: Vietnamese Adoptions and the Politics of Family Migrations (University of North Carolina Press, 2017), Allison Varzally documents the history of Vietnamese adoption in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century. Varzally adds to the growing literature on Southeast Asian Americans and on Asian international adoption by highlighting the distinctiveness of Vietnamese adoption for its liberal orientation and its expansive notion of kinship. Four chapters trace this history from its antiwar beginnings in the early Cold War; to Operation Babylift in 1975 and its controversial legal aftermath; to the federal legislation and social practices that shaped the “homecomings” of Amerasians in the 1980s; and, finally, to Vietnamese adoptees own attempts in the 1990s (and beyond) to find meaning in their journeys. Making ample use of oral history, Varzally tells stories that are both heart-rending and inspiring. They confirm that family formation was a central site of political