Teaching public management: the case for (and against) cases

This article calls for an increased and more rigorous use of the case method in public administration education. Cases yield generalizations, cases help students take ownership of knowledge, and cases can further repetition of behavioral characteristics important to students such as empathy and self-confidence.

The gradual expansion of public policy training into the area of public management has brought with it a marked increase in the use of cases and case teaching. Executive training programs, an ever more common feature of publicpolicy schools, rely even more heavily on case. Despite their prevalence and popularity, cases and case teaching have come in for considerable criticism. Social scientists in particular fault them for being atheoretical and, hence, lacking in intellectual rigor. Contemporary cases are also faulted for implicitly endorsing an “activist” or “heroic” view of public management. Whereas cases from the 1940s and 1950s portrayed a functional view of public managers, recent cases portray managers as people who actively shape their legal mandates and use administrative systems to promote political objectives--a questionable image to convey to students training for public service.⁽¹⁾

The first half of the paper describes in some detail a seminar, “Ethics and Public Management,” conducted at the Kennedy School by Mark Moore, Mark Lilla, and the author.     

Regional collective security in Europe: Past patterns and future prospects

NATO's entry into the Balkan war raised salient questions about the alliance's broader mission and, more generally, about Europe's security architecture. This article confronts these questions by revisiting the debate about collective defense versus collective security as organizing principles for alliances. NATO is viewed as serving a hybrid role of promoting collective defense and regional collective security. This latter, under‐valued function relates to NATO's role in promoting internal cohesion among its members and is crucial to understanding the alliance's evolution and its persistance long after the Cold War.     

The Analysis of Gun‐Cleaning Oil as Long‐Distance Gunshot Residue and Its Implications for Chemical Tags on Bullets

Using a BB gun, it was shown that a gun‐cleaning oil (GCO) can be wiped from the barrel by a projectile and carried much longer distances than those usually associated with solid gunshot residue (GSR). Analysis of GCO subsequently deposited on a target was performed using pentane extraction and gas chromatography. (Hoppe's GCO was used here as a model.) When a 0.45 caliber handgun was used, analysis reveals that most of the GCO wiped from the barrel does not survive, owing to the elevated temperatures encountered. However, two components of the GCO, a long‐chain fatty acid and its ethyl ester, do survive and can be detected in the bullet wipe. This suggests that GCO may be considered as GSR, uniquely detectable at long distances, and that other chemical compounds could either be added to a GCO or directly to bullets, to serve as identifying chemical tags.