Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:44:15.743Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Flight of the Bumblebee: Why Reform Is Difficult but Not Impossible

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2006

Clarence Stone ,
Marion Orr  and
Donn Worgs
Clarence Stone
Affiliation:
George Washington, and University of [email protected]
Marion Orr
Affiliation:
Brown [email protected]
Donn Worgs
Affiliation:
Towson Universitydworgs@ towson.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Positing behavior as interest driven insufficiently explains why reform is difficult. This article draws on experiences with school reform to argue that ideas in the form of purposes play a part. Purposes, however, are erratic sources of motivation, sometimes generating intense commitments but often functioning in a mercurial manner. They operate in conjunction with the character and strength of supports. Purposes that are compatible in principle may nevertheless compete for time, resources, and especially attention. Because human beings are creatures of bounded rationality, any given purpose is susceptible to attention shift. Interpersonal and interorganizational networks can serve as counterweights by bolstering identity with the reform goal, providing cognitive reinforcement for it, and enhancing the credibility of a reform goal as achievable. In an assessment of the role of ideas, it is important to remember that they come in a variety of scopes and levels of abstractness. As forces in the politics of reform, ideas have a part shaped by context. The role of ideas in the local setting is quite different from their role in media-infused battles at the national level. Local arenas are frequently nonpartisan, with actors focused on immediate concerns, daily demands, and scarce resources. Because concrete actions may be more important than ideological posture, mass persuasion may be of less concern than enlistment of scattered cadres of task-specific activists.Clarence Stone is Research Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at George Washington and Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland ([email protected]). Marion Orr is Frederick Lippitt Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science and Urban Studies, Brown University ([email protected]). Donn Worgs is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of Metropolitan Studies, Towson University (dworgs@ towson.edu). The authors wish to thank three anonymous reviewers for extraordinarily helpful comments.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , September 2006 , pp. 529 - 546
Copyright
© 2006 American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alinsky, Saul D. 1971. Rules for Radicals. New York: Random House.
Barnard, Chester I. 1968. The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Baum, Howell S. 1999. Education and the Empowerment Zone. Journal of Urban Affairs 21 (3): 289–307.Google Scholar
Baum, Howell S. 2003. Community Action for School Reform. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Baumgartner, Frank R., and Bryan D. Jones. 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Béland, Daniel. 2005. Ideas and social policy: An institutionalist perspective. Social Policy and Administration 39 (1): 1–18.Google Scholar
Benford, Robert D., and David A. Snow. 2000. Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology 26: 611–39.Google Scholar
Berman, Sheri. 2001. Ideas, norms, and culture in political analysis. Comparative Politics 33 (2): 231–50.Google Scholar
Berrien, Jenny, and Christopher Winship. 2002. An umbrella of legitimacy: Boston's police department—Ten Point Collaboration. In Securing Our Children's Future: New Approaches to Juvenile Justice and Youth Violence, ed. Gary S. Katzmann. Washington DC: Brookings, 200–28.
Berrien, Jenny, and Christopher Winship. 2003. Should we have faith in the churches? The Ten-Point Coalition's effect on Boston's youth violence. In Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America, ed. Bernard E. Harcourt. New York: New York University Press 222–48.
Blyth, Mark. 2003. Structures do not come with an instruction sheet: Interests, ideas, and progress in political science. Perspectives on Politics 1 (4): 695–706.Google Scholar
Braga, Anthony A., and Christopher Winship. 2006. Partnership, accountability, and innovation: Clarifying the Boston experience with pulling levers. In Police Innovation: Contrasting Perspectives, eds. David L. Weisbrod and Anthony A. Braga. New York: Cambridge University Press..
Chong, Dennis. 1991. Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cohen, Jean L. 1985. Strategy or identity. Social Research 52 (4): 663–716.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1972. Up and down with ecology—the issue-attention cycle. Public Interest 28: 38–50.Google Scholar
Evans, Sara. 1980. Personal Politics. New York: Vintage.
Ferree, Myra M. 1992. The political context of rationality. In Frontiers of Social Movement Theory, eds. Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Friedman, Debra, and Doug McAdam. 1992. Collective identity and activism. In Frontiers of Social Movement Theory, eds. Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Friedman, Jeffrey. 1996. The Rational Choice Controversy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Goldman, Eric F. 1952. Rendezvous with Destiny: A History of Modern American Reform. New York: Random House.
Gould, Roger. 1993. Collective action and network structure. American Sociological Review 58 (2): 182–96.Google Scholar
Greater Baltimore Committee. 2004. “Review of the Baltimore City Public School System's Deficit.” (July 12) Baltimore, MD.
Green, Donald P., and Ian Shapiro. 1994. Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Henig, Jeffrey R., and Wilbur C. Rich. 2004. Mayors in the Middle. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jones, Bryan D. 1994. Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jones, Bryan D. 2001. Politics and the Architecture of Choice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
King, Martin Luther Jr. 1986. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James M. Washington. New York: HarperCollins.
Kingdon, John W. 1995. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. New York: HarperCollins.
Knoke, David. 1988. Incentives in collective action organizations. American Sociological Review 53 (3): 311–29.Google Scholar
Lieberman, Robert C. 2002. Ideas, institutions, and political order: Explaining political change. American Political Science Review 96 (4): 697–712.Google Scholar
Manes, Charles W. 1986. The United Nations in a divided world. Washington Post Book World, March 2, 5.
March, James, and Johan Olsen. 1989. Rediscovering Institutions. New York: Free Press.
March, James, and Johan Olsen. 1995. Democratic Governance. New York: Free Press.
Marwell, Gerald, and Pamela Oliver. 1993. The Critical Mass in Collective Action. New York: Columbia University Press.
Maryland State Department of Education. 2004. “Investigation of Baltimore City Public School System's Deficit.” (July 20). Baltimore, MD.
Matthew, Robert Guy. 1998. “Mayor's focus is back on downtown.” Baltimore Sun, January 23.
McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald. 1996. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements. New York: Cambridge University Press.
McAdam, Doug, and Ronnelle Paulsen. 1993. Specifying the relationship between social ties and activism. American Journal of Sociology 99 (3): 640–67.Google Scholar
Moore, Mark H. 1988. What sort of ideas become public ideas? In The Power of Public Ideas, ed. Steven Kelman. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Mucciaroni, Gary. 1992. The garbage can model & the study of policy making: A critique. Polity 24 (3): 459–82.Google Scholar
Muir, William K. 1977. Police: Streetcorner Politicians. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Orr, Marion. 1999. Black Social Capital: The Politics of School Reform in Baltimore. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Orr, Marion. 2000. Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development: Exploring the role of governing nonprofits. In Nonprofits in Urban America, ed. Richard C. Hula and Cynthia Jackson-Elmoore. Westport, CT: Quorum Books.
Orr, Marion. 2004. Baltimore: The limits of mayoral control. In Mayors in the Middle, ed. Jeffrey R. Henig and Wilbur C. Rich. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Osborne, David, and Peter Plastrik. 1997. Banishing Bureaucracy: Five Strategies for Reinventing Government. New York: Plume.
Peters, B. Guy, and Brian W. Hogwood. 1985. In search of the issue-attention cycle. Journal of Politics 47 (1): 238–53.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 1994. Dismantling the Welfare State. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pierson, Paul. 2000. Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics. American Political Science Review 94 (2): 251–67.Google Scholar
Portz, John, Lana Stein, and Robin Jones. 1999. City Schools and City Politics. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Pressman, Jeffrey L., and Aaron Wildavsky. 1984. Implementation. 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Rae, Douglas W. 2003. City: Urbanism and Its End. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Riordon, William L. 1963. Plunkitt of Tammany Hall. New York: E.P. Hutton.
Rothstein, Bo. 1996. The Social Democratic State. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Schwartz, Michael, and Shuva Paul. 1992. Resource mobilization versus the mobilization of people. In Frontiers of Social Movement Theory, ed. Aldon D. Morris and Carol McClurg Mueller. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Selznick, Philip. 1957. Leadership in Administration. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sen, Rinku. 2003. Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Sirianni, Carmen. 2005. “Youth civic engagement: System change and culture change in Hampton, Virginia.” Circle Working Paper 31 (April). Center for Information & Research on Civic Leadership & Engagement. www.civicyouth.org.
Smock, Kristina. 2004. Democracy in Action: Community Organizing and Urban Change. New York: Columbia University Press.
Snow, David A., Louis Zurcher, and Sheldon Ekland-Olson. 1980. Social networks and social movements. American Sociological Review 45 (5): 787–801.Google Scholar
Stone, Clarence N. 1989. Regime Politics: Governing Atlanta, 1946–1988. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Stone, Clarence N. 2003. “Civic Cooperation in El Paso.” A Case Study for School Communities that Work Task Force of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform: Case Studies in Community Partnership. http://www.schoolcommunities.org/Portfolio/
Stone, Clarence, and Donn Worgs. 2004. Community Building and a Human-Capital Agenda in Hampton, Virginia: A case analysis of the policy process in a medium-size city. Working paper. George Washington Institute of Public Policy. Washington, DC.
Taylor, Verta, and Marieke van Willingnen. 1996. Women's self-help and the reconstruction of gender. Mobilization 1 (2): 123–42.Google Scholar
Tita, George, Jack Riley, Gregory Ridgeway, and Clifford Grammich. 2003. Unruly turf: The role of interagency collaboration in reducing gun violence. Rand Review 27 (3): 1–10.Google Scholar
Usdan, Michael, and Larry Cuban. 2003. Boston: The stars finally in alignment. In Powerful Reforms with Shallow Roots, ed. Larry Cuban and Michael Usdan. New York: Reachers College Press.
Wilson, James Q. 1962. The Amateur Democrat. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Wilson, James Q. 1973. Political Organizations. New York: Basic Books.
Yee, Gary. 2003. From Court Street to City Hall: Governance change in the Boston Public Schools. In A Race against Time: The Crisis in Urban Schooling, ed. James G. Cibulka and William Lowe Boyd. Westport, CT: Praeger.