Cases in Public Policy and Administration

Book excerpt: Writing the perfect complement to their bestseller, Introducing Public Administration, Shafritz and Borick highlight the great drama inherent in public policy -- and the ingenuity of its makers and administrators -- in this new casebook that brings thrilling, true life adventures in public administration to life in an engaging, witty style. Drawing on a unique assortment of literary, historic, and modern examples, Cases in Public Policy and Administration exposes students to public administration in practice by telling the tales of: How Thurgood Marshall led the legal fight for civil rights and made it possible for Barack Obama to become president How the ideas of an academic economist and a famous novelist led to the recession that started in 2008 How Al Gore really deserves just a little bit of credit for inventing the Internet How the decision was made by President Harry Truman to drop the first atomic bomb on Japan in order to end World War II How the current American welfare state was inspired by a German chancellor How a Nazi war criminal inadvertently provided the world with a lesson in bureaucratic ethics How Napoleon Bonaparte encouraged the job of chief of staff to escape from the military and live in contemporary civilian offices How an obscure state department bureaucrat wrote the policy of containment that allowed the United States to win the Cold War with the Soviet Union How Dwight D. Eisenhower was started on the road to the presidency by a mentor he found in the Panamanian rain forest How Florence Nightingale gathered statistics during the Crimean War that helped lead to contemporary program evaluation.