Towards the New Laswell School of Public Policy
| Author | Helmut K. Anheier |
| Date | 01 February 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12661 |
| Published date | 01 February 2019 |
Towards the New Laswell School of Public
Policy
Helmut K. Anheier
Hertie School of Governance and Heidelberg University
The commentators on my essay on ‘The Future of Public
Policy Schools’have very usefully added additional perspec-
tives and insights into the analysis leading up the to the
proposed New Laswell School, while pointing at some of
the seeming inconsistencies and challenges involved. This
rejoinder addresses the most pertinent points raised while
clarifying some aspects that remained perhaps too implicit
in the essay itself.
First, the proposed New Laswell School is not meant to
be the blueprint for all public policy schools wherever
located now or in future. The proposal is one way forward
to help public policy schools position themselves in chan-
ged and changing academic and policy environments. As
such, the New Laswell School is part of an ongoing differen-
tiation process that has seen public policy schools change
and develop over time. It could emerge next to other mod-
els, as it is likely to fit the purpose and plans of some but
not all current and future schools. In other words, my pro-
posal was not to replace all current models, but to make
the case for a new one that, in my view, offers better
responses to 21st century demands and anticipated devel-
opments.
Indeed, I chose the name ‘Laswell School’to signal pur-
pose, ambition and comprehensiveness. For public policy
schools, the New Laswell School it is a highly demanding,
perhaps even, risky proposal and certainly more so than a
traditional focus on public administration or political econ-
omy. It is more part of the Dahrendorf intellectual tradition
and less of the Weberian model with its focus on adminis-
trative rationality or the McNamara type emphasizing tech-
nocratic policy making. It requires such schools to live up to
their self-chosen fundamental responsibility of educating tal-
ent to become experts that are deeply dedicated to the
public good, while doubting conventional wisdoms, chal-
lenging established ways and means and in ways large and
small and suggesting policy innovations and solutions to
policy problems based on explicit normative assumptions.
The New Laswell School is therefore different from the
three categories Jack Knott outlines in his response (policy
analysis, public administration and comprehensive) in both
ambition and orientation: it flourishes best in a liberal
democracy while challenging the very system that makes it
possible; it is deeply academic while equally concerned
about applications to public problems; it nurtures its core
academic audiences and responds to changing and employ-
ers demands while actively reaching into ‘markets’and fields
traditionally served by business, law, education, social work
and other professional schools.
In a sense, the New Laswell School would fit conventional
academia even less than most public policy schools today
as it deliberately trespasses disciplinary boundaries and
claims. Moreover, such a school would be less comfortable
to those seeking ready-made experts willing to carry out
conventional administrative tasks as its graduates, as merito-
cratic stewards of the public good, are prone to raise and
address nagging questions; and it would no longer see itself
as the junior partner next to business and law schools and
act as a confident competitor instead.
Second, Mark Moore is however right in pointing out that
the notion and stewardship is too weak and ambiguous to
serve as some kind of guiding principle to counteract social
closures tendencies among political-administrative elite.
Indeed, what the New Laswell School would mean for leader-
ship and of what kind is admittedly one of the weakest points
in my essay. It would be very useful to examine what role
leadership plays in the curricula of public policy school and
what the experiences have been in turning talent into leaders.
For example, how many of our graduates assume positions of
leadership that they would have been unlikely to obtain with-
out attending a public policy school? And what of the leader-
ship qualities they display is informed, let alone shaped, by
leadership curricula? The experience Mark has at the Kennedy
School of Government would be invaluable in addressing
these questions and in developing the leadership aspect of
the New Laswell School.
Rejoinder on Commentaries by Lisa Anderson,
Ira Katznelson, Jack H. Knott, Mark Moore,
Claus Offe, Erika J. Techera, and Lan Xue to ‘On the
Future of the Public Policy School’, Helmut K. Anheier*
*Anheier, H. K. (2019), ‘On the Future of the Public Policy School’,
Global Policy, 10 (1), pp. 75-83. First published online: 08 October
2018, https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12599
©2019 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Global Policy (2019) 10:1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12661
Global Policy Volume 10 . Issue 1 . February 2019
104
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