Dear Colleagues:

At the beginning of his first term, President Bush put a lot of emphasis on his “Faith-Based Initiative,” a policy of involving faith-based organizations more directly in the delivery of social services. He created a White House Office for this new “F-BI,” headed by a very distinguished political scientist, John DiIulio, and there were many legislative proposals.

Is the F-BI a good idea? And what happened to it, anyway? Not much has happened on the legislative front since then, but a lot has happened through administrative means. Meanwhile, political concerns about the initiative itself and the Bush administration’s approaches to social policy in general have not cooled off at all.

In May of 2001 the Center for Policy Studies hosted a conference on campus about the F-BI. So I’ve been following it a bit and, in the absence of a more-qualified speaker, I’ve prepared some introductory material for what could be a free-wheeling discussion. Anyone who’s curious might take a look at the superb website run by the Rockefeller Institute of Government,

http://www.religionandsocialpolicy.org

It’s a great example of what serious scholars can offer to policy debate – such as clarification among a fog of rhetoric. Maybe we can do a bit of the same.

As usual, we should have beverages and cookies, and will gather from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.. This week’s lunch is in Crawford Hall Room 14. I look forward to the discussion.

Best regards,
Joe White

About Our Guest

Professor White came to Case in 2000 as Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Policy Studies, and became Department Chair in 2003. He came to Cleveland from New Orleans, where he was Associate Professor of Health Systems Management in the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University. Previously he was a Research Associate and then Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.. He received his A.B. from the University of Chicago and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. White’s research interests and publications have focused on federal budgeting policy and politics, Congress, health care finance in the United States and other countries, Social Security and Medicare. His most recent book is False Alarm: Why the Greatest Threat to Social Security and Medicare is the Campaign to Save Them (Johns Hopkins University Press 2001; Paperback with new postscript, 2003). He is also the author of Competing Solutions: American Health Care Proposals and International Experience (Brookings, 1995) and, with Aaron Wildavsky, of The Deficit and the Public Interest: The Search for Responsible Budgeting in the 1980s (University of California Press and The Russell Sage Foundation, 1989; Paperback with postscript 1991). His most recent publications are “Making Connections to the Appropriations Process” in Paul Herrnson et al. eds., The Interest Group Connection 2nd ed (CQ Press, forthcoming); “How is Aging a Health Policy Problem?” in Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics 4:1 (Winter, 2004); and “Three Meanings of Capacity; Or, Why the Federal Government Is Most Likely to Lead on Insurance Access Issues” in Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 28:2-3 (April-June, 2003).

His courses include The American Political System,; The Public Policy Process; Bureacratic Politics in the U.S.; Legislative Politics; Comparative Public Policy; Interest Groups in the Policy Process; and Politics, Policy and Tobacco. In addition, as Director of the Center for Policy Studies Dr. White organizes public programming on issues ranging from “War and Peace between the United States and Iraq” to the teaching of “Intelligent Design” theory in Ohio public schools, and from NASA’s Mission to Mars to national missile defense.  For more information on the Center for Policy Studies; for more on Professor White’s research.

Spring 2005 Semester Schedule

March 11: Spring Break

March 18, Crawford Hall 14: Dick Baznik, Director, Case Western Reserve University Institute for the Study of the University in Society, “Notes on the History of Case Western Reserve University.”

March 25, Crawford Hall 14: Amos Guiora, Visiting Professor of Law and Lt. Colonel, Israeli Defense Forces,  “Morality in Armed Conflict.”

April 1: Toepfer Room: Sharona Hoffman, Associate Professor of Law, “Race and the Law.”

April 8: Toepfer Room: Robert Clarke Brown, Member of the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority and Capital Markets Advisor at the U.S. Department of Transportation: “The Politics of Airports.”

April 15: TBA

April 22: Toepfer Room: Robert Walters Ph.D., “Responding to Humanitarian Emergencies – What a Geologist Learned at the State Department.”

April 29: TBA

Parking: People who due to mobility concerns need to make special arrangements for parking for the Public Affairs Discussion Group Friday Lunch Series can send their request for parking to, patricia.cornacchione@case.edu or you can call 216-368-4440 and speak to Pat or Fay to make arrangements.