Donald F. Kettl, professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, gave a lecture titled "The Next Government of the United States: Strategies for 21st Century Government" on March 7 as part of the Levitt Center's 2004-2005 speaker series. Kettl discussed the new problems and persistent challenges of governance in the 21st century,
and offered some solutions for creating a more "responsive and responsible" government.
Kettl began his talk by comparing the way that the two different 9/11 disaster scenes were handled. At the Pentagon, Kettl said, the situation was handled efficiently and rescue efforts were well-coordinated due to advance planning by Arlington police chief Ed Flynn. The World Trade Center site was more chaotic and less coordinated. There was less information sharing between and even within departments of first responders. This is because there was "no unified incident command" and no advance strategy for dealing with such a catastrophe, Kettl explained.
Incidents such as 9/11, Kettl said, are proof that the problems of government don't "stay between the lines." That is to say that the scope of problems and situations refuses to be confined by the structural and bureaucratic dividing lines that are laid out in our government. This also holds true for many other things that government
has to deal with, said Kettl, including environmental issues, welfare, health care, education, and social services, which also defy the boundaries of our governing structure.
According to Kettl, the history of American government is full of examples in which strains have been placed on governance by the overlapping of boundaries. Attempts to decide who is responsible for what and who will pay for what inevitably leads to these conflicts and strains, Kettl said. The Civil War, for example, was caused by strains in the system of federalism which placed strict dividing lines between state and federal government, Kettl argued. After the Civil War, the
system was forced to adapt and the federal government was made preeminent.
Another historical example is the emergence of the progressive movement, which challenged the boundaries between public and private spheres and asked the government to take more of a role in regulation of industry and the economy. Finally, Kettl said, the post-World War II era caused the United States to become less isolationist and stretched the boundaries between international and domestic
affairs, leading to the emergence of the US as a pro-active global force.
Today, Kettl argued, we have moved into a new era after September 11th where all of these boundaries are strained again. Problems of homeland security exist on the national and international level, but actual response to terrorist attacks happens on a local level with first responders. This strains the boundaries of national vs. international, as well as federal vs. state vs. local. It also relates to the distinction between public and private, Kettl said, since incidents in the private sphere can have such widespread effects. For example, he noted, the World Trade Center attack was a situation where private individuals hijacked a privately-owned plane and crashed it into a privately-owned building, but citizens rightfully expect the
government to prevent such incidents from occurring.
Overall, our system of government services today is much more complex and difficult to manage than ever before. The situation that occurred this past winter with defective flu vaccine is a good example, Kettl said. It involved an American company producing vaccine overseas in Great Britain for sale in America, and therefore required the oversight of both American and British regulators, and the problem occurred when the two different regulation agencies disagreed. The
spread of diseases such as the avian flu also presents a global problem that requires cooperation between nations and between public and private institutions. Public schooling is an example of when responsibility and blame can be shared between so many different groups that ultimately no one is accountable, Kettl said.
These are the sort of problems which a 21st century government will have to
address. Much of our government now operates indirectly through independent contractors, making it difficult to control results or measure outcomes and blurring the line between private and government employees. The policy-making structures that allocate resources for government activity also also fragmented and complex, Kettl said, and their shapes do not reflect the shapes of the problems they are
dealing with.
Kettl ended his talk by talking about the solutions he sees the problems of 21st century government. Part of the solution, he argued, is shifting our policy-making focus away from the organization of the government to center it around the actual problems that we are dealing with. Organizations much be "organic," he said, focusing less on defending their territory and more on cooperating to best solve
problems. Kettl also stressed a focus on information on and evaluation of the performance of government programs. Lastly, he said, there has to be an increase in civic accountability and an acknowledgement among citizens that all of us are part of the system and part of the problem, now more than ever before. The people are the government, both through our payment and participation in the system. The problems of 21st century government are not beyond solution, Kettl said, but they will require all of us working together to increase the responsibility and responsiveness of the system.
-- by Caroline O'Shea '07
