[PEN-L:4688] Re: what is ...

[Mark Laffey <MLAFFEY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This string seems appropriate for my related request for citations.  My partner
will be teaching part of a graduate seminar in a newly constituted public
policy program in the fall.  The program as a whole is quite conservative in
both design and structure, and she had to lobby quite hard even to get the
limited space for critical work that she has.  What she plans to do is to give
students (these will be brand-new students, just entering the program) exposure
to a variety of alternative approches to doing policy analysis.  She plans to
use Sanford Schram's Words of Welfare as an example of postmodern analysis, and
Marilyn Waring's If Women Counted as an example of feminist analysis.  What she
needs most is a good example of a Marxist analysis.  She had thought to use
Piven and Cloward but is concerned that it may be a bit old.  Ideal would be a
book-length piece along lines similar to Peter Gowan's recent NLR article on
shock therapy in Eastern Europe (not necessarily addressing the same subject
matter).  Preferably, the Marxist framing of the analysis ought to be a bit
more explicit than in Gowan, if only because we can safely assume that these
students in common with most other U.S. graduate students will either not have
been exposed to Marx or will have a knee-jerk antipathy.  She needs a teaching
tool that lays out the categories in a relatively non-technical way and that
addresses a relatively prominent public policy problem.  Any suggestions?

I cannot stress enough how important it is that this course go well in its
first iteration.  Thanks in advance for your help.

Mark Laffey
Department of Political Science
Kent State University