Background
Peterson, Paul Elliott was born on September 16, 1940 in Montevideo, Minnesota, United States. Son of Alvin C. and Josephine (TelKamp) Peterson.
( What really happened when citizens were asked to partic...)
What really happened when citizens were asked to participate in their community’s poverty programs? In this revealing new book, the authors provide an answer to this question through a systematic empirical analysis of a single public policy issuecitizen participation in the Community Action Program of the Johnson Administration’s War on Poverty.” Beginning with a brief case study description and analysis of the politics of community action in each of America’s five largest citiesNew York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Philadelphiathe authors move on to a fascinating examination of race and authority structures in our urban life. In a series of lively chapters, Professors Greenstone and Peterson show how the coalitions that formed around the community action question developed not out of electoral or organizational interests alone, but were strongly influenced by our conceptions of the nature of authority in America. They discuss the factors that affected the development of the action program and they note that democratic elections of low-income representatives, however much preferred by democratic reformers, were an ineffective way of representing the interests of the poor. The book stresses the way in which both machine and reform structures affected the ability of minority groups to organize effectively and to form alliances in urban politics. It considers the wide-ranging critiques made of the Community Action Program by conservative, liberal, and radical analysts and finds that all of them fail to appreciate the significance and intensity of the racial cleavage in American politics.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0871543737/?tag=2022091-20
( "The best way of handling the question of how much to g...)
"The best way of handling the question of how much to give the poor, politicians have discovered, is to avoid doing anything about it at all," note Paul Peterson and Mark Rom. The issue of the minimum people need in order to live decently is so difficult that Congress has left this crucial question to the states—even though the federal government foots three-fourths of the bill for about 15 million Americans who receive cash and food stamp benefits. The states differ widely in their assessment of what a family needs to meet a reasonable standard of living, and the interstate differences in welfare benefits cannot be explained by variations in wage levels or costs of living. The states with higher welfare benefits act as magnets by attracting or retaining poor people. In the competition to avoid becoming welfare havens, states have cut welfare benefits in real dollars by more than one-third since 1970. The authors propose the establishment of a minimum federal welfare standard, which would both reduce the interstate variation in welfare benefits and stem their overall decline. Peterson and Rom develop their argument in four steps. First they show how the politics of welfare magnets works in a case study of policymaking in Wisconsin. Second, they present their analysis of the overall magnet effect in American state politics, finding evidence that states with high welfare benefits experiencing disproportionate growth in their poverty rates make deeper welfare cuts. Third, they describe the process by which the current system came into being, identifying the reform efforts and political crises that have contributed to the centralization of welfare policy as well as the regional, partisan, and group interests that have resisted these changes. Finally, the authors propose a practical step that can go a long way toward achieving a national welfare standard; then assess it's cost, benefits, and political feasibility.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0815770219/?tag=2022091-20
educator political scientist program director
Peterson, Paul Elliott was born on September 16, 1940 in Montevideo, Minnesota, United States. Son of Alvin C. and Josephine (TelKamp) Peterson.
Bachelor summa cum laude, Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota, 1962; Master of Arts, University of Chicago, 1964; Doctor of Philosophy, University of Chicago, 1967.
Professor departments political science and education, University of Chicago, 1967-1983;
member commission on public policy studies, University of Chicago, 1979-1983;
Chairman of Commission on public policy studies, University of Chicago, 1981-1983;
research associate, National Opinion Research Center, Washington, 1978-1983;
director governmental studies, Brookings Institution, Washington, 1983-1987;
professor department political science, Johns Hopkins University, 1987-1988;
professor department government, Harvard University, since 1988;
Henry Lee Shattuck professor government, Harvard University, since 1989;
director Center for American Political Studies, Harvard University, since 1989. Visiting assistant professor department political science University of Illinois, Urbana, 1971. Visiting assoc.prof. department political science U. Washington, Seattle, 1973-1974.
Visiting professor School Edition and department political science Stanford University, 1980-1981. Academic visitor LondonSch. Economics and Political Science, 1977-1978.
Member United States advisory commission on intergovernment relations, Washington, since 1986. Rapporteur 20th century taskforce on future of Federal Education Policy, Washington, 1981-1983.
( What really happened when citizens were asked to partic...)
( "The best way of handling the question of how much to g...)
Member National Research Council (commission on youth unemployment 1982-1985, commission on mathematics science and technical 1983-1985, commission on national urban policy 1986-1988), American Ednl. Research, American Political Science Association, Association for Public Policy and Management, National Academy Education.
Married Carol Diane Schnell, August 31, 1963. Children: David, Sarah, John.