HAUSER CENTER IN THE NEWS

Stay or go policy an 'invitation to potential disaster'
Australian Broadcasting Corporation online
April 29
Quoted: Dutch Leonard
Topic: Australia’s emergency response system for fires

Testifying before the Royal Commission into Black Saturday, Harvard University emergency management specialist, Professor Dutch Leonard, says the stay or go policy cannot be judged only on its ideal.

He said a policy that worked in theory might not be a good policy in practice, if authorities cannot get people to comply with it.

Professor Leonard said he did not think a policy could be judged as good by saying "households should have complied but they didn't."

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Alcohol revenue not worth the pain
The Decatur Daily (TN)
April 11, 2010
Cited: Mark Moore, Hauser Center
Topic: Laws restricting alcohol sales

… I know some of you would ask, “What difference does it make if we sell liquor on Sunday? After all, prohibition never works.” Actually, Prohibition in the 1920s was a great success according to Mark H. Moore, professor of criminal justice at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

In an Oct. 16, 1989, New York Times article, Moore wrote that alcohol consumption declined dramatically during Prohibition. Cirrhosis death rates for men dropped from 29.5 per 100,000 in 1911 to 10.7 per 100,000 in 1929. Admissions to state mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis declined from 10.1 per 100,000 in 1919 to 4.7 per 100,000 in 1928. Arrests for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct declined 50 percent between 1916 and 1922. While homicide rates rose dramatically from 1900 to 1910, they remained constant during Prohibition.
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Evangelist Panel Discusses Religion in Politics
Harvard Crimson
March 4, 2010
Mentioned: J. Bryan Hehir
Topic: Last night’s Forum on morals and Wall street

Richard Parker moderated last night’s Forum on morals and Wall Street.
In a panel discussion at the Institute of Politics yesterday, three noteworthy evangelists discussed how their religious traditions, which are often seen as conservative, can offer a progressive view of the fundamental questions that arose following the financial crisis.

The speakers emphasized that society should not overlook the possibility that religion can positively inform politics, despite the political world’s commitment to secularity in modern times.
Jim Wallis, a best-selling evangelical author and president of the Christian social justice organization Sojourners, said that it was important to move beyond the individualistic mindset—as he called it, the “it’s all about me, and I want it now”-attitude. …

Harvard Kennedy School professor J. Bryan Hehir, whose work focuses on religion and public life, also participated in the panel discussion.
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HOW TO » Hold a Town Hall Meeting
Capitol Ideas magazine
March 1, 2010
Quoted: Archon Fung
Topic: Town hall meetings
Archon Fung was also quoted in an article from NextGov.com.

Archon Fung, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, is an expert on civic participation and public deliberation. He looks at all sorts of ways people are getting involved in policymaking and the policy process—that’s where the public meeting comes in. Here are Fung’s tips on how to make one successful.
BE CLEAR ON THE PURPOSE.
The most common bad reason to hold a public meeting is because public officials think they should. “They’re basically either literally or figuratively checking off a box on a list of things that they ought to do,” Fung said. If public officials don’t know what people think about an issue and if government needs public participation to get its job done (think recycling, for example), those are good reasons to hold a public meeting, he said.
GET HELP.
Meetings are an art. Many resources are available to organize and conduct a town hall meeting to meet specific purposes, Fung said. Organizations like Everyday Democracy, Deliberative Democracy Consortium, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation and the International Association for Public Participation are a few that offer such resources.

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Getting Haiti to stand again Harvard Gazette
February 4, 2010
Quoted: Arrietta Chakos and Dutch Leonard, Acting in Time
Topic: Perspectives on recovery in Haiti
… Arrietta Chakos
Director, Acting in Time Advance Disaster Recovery Project, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School …
 
The humanitarian response has to be swift, decisive, and coordinated. The incoming responders must be self-sufficient, collaborative, and focused on immediate need because the Haitian authorities are not yet able to manage the situation. Typically, landscape-scale disasters exponentially magnify pre-event systemic vulnerabilities; this is evident in the situation at hand.
The immediate order of business is complex. Restoring critical lifelines — water, communications, fuel, power —must be a first priority. Medical services and emergency housing must follow close on. …
Herman “Dutch” Leonard
George F. Baker Jr. Professor of Public Management, Harvard Kennedy School; Eliot I. Snider and Family Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Haiti needs sustained local leadership development. In the end, only so much can be done from outside the country. Disparate recovery rates in different parts of New Orleans teach us that the quality of local leadership — the ability to understand the continuously evolving challenges of building a recovery, and the ability to adapt to those challenges — is the essential key to successful recovery. Development of repopulation and community planning must be indigenously owned and driven.
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International community, Haitians must work together Des Moines Register
January 29, 2010
Op-ed by: Peter Bell, Hauser Center
Topic: International response to earthquake in Haiti
Peter Bell was also quoted in the New York Times and the L.A. Times.
The worldwide outpouring of support for Haitians from governments and ordinary citizens has been extraordinary. Rescue teams saving people pinned under collapsed buildings and medical teams performing surgery without basic supplies have been spellbinding. But this heroic phase of the emergency response is drawing to a close.
The next phase of the response has begun and is becoming increasingly well-organized. It is meant to stabilize the situation, re-establish a sense of normalcy and prevent epidemics - always a threat when people go hungry, drink polluted water and live cheek by jowl. This phase will involve the provision of water, food, sanitation, security and temporary shelter to hundreds of thousands of Haitians. In addition, tens of thousands should be put to work in temporary but paid jobs, clearing debris, building latrines, putting up tents - and returning money to the economy.
On Monday, members of the international donor community met in Montreal to begin focusing on the long-term task of rebuilding Haiti. They know what made so many Haitians so vulnerable


I thought you might be interested in seeing this opinion piece on Haiti by Peter Bell – it was published in today’s Des Moines Register.
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Rahim B. Kanani Research Associate, Justice and Human Rights Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations
Re: the West and counter-extremism 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rahim-kanani/change-comes-from-within_b_416655.html
Del Caño Martín Peña a la Universidad de Harvard
El Nuevo Dia (Puerto Rico)
January 21, 2010
Mentioned: Christine Letts, Executive Education
Topic: HKS winter project in Puerto Rico
The excerpt below was translated from Spanish.
The waste water for residences was rising every time it rained, the houses huddled against each other, the dirt roads and the desire for more than 20 thousand people to improve their community at Martin Pena was portrayed in a documentary made students at Harvard University who recently visited the impoverished area.
In her usual Winter Institute on the Island, one of the deans of the John F. Kennedy School of Government Kennedy decided to turn the situation of the community of Hato Rey in a case study for its students.
The group of 26 people, also composed by students at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and the Center for Advanced Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, spent a day with members of Project Corporation Cano Martin Pena link. …
Talks between the CEO and the Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education, Christine Letts, began during the month of October, when both agreed on an activity at the UPR precisely the time the teacher arrived to coordinate the activities of the Winter Institute.
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Los Angeles Times
December 29th 2009
Quoted: Christopher Stone, Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, Program in Criminal Justice
Topic: China’s execution of a British citizen for drug smuggling

The Chinese government today executed a 53-year-old British citizen for drug smuggling, ignoring international pleas for clemency and claims by supporters that he was mentally ill, the British Foreign Office said. …

Others said the case was about more than just a failure of international relations.

"Westerners have a long and disreputable history of seeking exemption from Chinese law for their nationals engaged in drug dealing, going back to the Opium Wars of the 19th century," said Christopher Stone, chairman of the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "The Chinese cannot treat this convicted drug smuggler differently from others because he is a British citizen."

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BBC Radio 4
Wednesday December 23rd 2009 0715
A British man is to be executed in China next week after losing his appeal against the death penalty. Akmal Shaikh, from London, was arrested two years ago and charged with drug smuggling. He appealed on mental health grounds, saying that he was tricked into carrying the drugs by criminals. An expert on the death penalty laws in China, Professor Christopher Stone of Harvard University, comments. (With Audio)

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