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Elaine Kamarck

Elaine C. Kamarck is a lecturer in public policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. She is author of The End of Government ... As We Know It: Making Public Policy Work. She served in the Clinton White House as creator and manager of the federal government's National Performance Review from 1993 to 1997.

Recent Articles

No One In Charge

Writing policy is easy. Making it work is hard. And when those who run government have no respect for the institutions, it's even harder.

Elaine KamarckDec 11, 2008

The Next Government of the United States: Why Our Institutions Fail Us and How to Fix Them By Donald F. Kettl, W.W. Norton & Company, 256 pages, $25.95

The study of how public policy is carried out has been the stepchild of scholars and practitioners alike. It is intrinsically more interesting to opine on where policy should go than on how to get there. Yet the overwhelming breakdowns of government that lead to political breakdowns have often been failures of implementation.