Background
Porter grew up in Utah, Iowa, and New York and attended Brigham Young High School in Provo, Utah.
(Presidential Decision Making describes two organizational...)
Presidential Decision Making describes two organizational challenges the President faces - the interrelatedness of the issues he is expected to address and the fragmented structure of the executive departments and offices he presides over. The dynamics and problems of the Presidency are illuminated in this inside account of decision making in the White House. Newly elected presidents invariably proclaim their commitment to an enlarged role for cabinet, department, and agency heads but often abandon the effort after a few months in office. The Economic Policy Board, a cabinet-level body established shortly after Gerald Ford became President, was one of the most systematic and sustained attempts to organize advice for the President in recent decades. This book examines in detail the Board's deliberations over three controversial policy issues: the 1975 State of the Union tax proposals, the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Grain Agreement, and the 1976 footwear import decision. In evaluating these decisions and assessing the Board, which Gerald Ford called 'the most important institutional innovation of my administration', the author draws on scores of interviews with cabinet officials and career civil servants. The author proposes methods for organizing the decision-making process in the White House and for structuring the cabinet-level committees.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521233372/?tag=2022091-20
Porter grew up in Utah, Iowa, and New York and attended Brigham Young High School in Provo, Utah.
And Doctor of Philosophy from Harvard University.
He is the Master of Dunster House, one of the twelve undergraduate houses or colleges at Harvard. He is also a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, District of Columbia He received his Bachelor of Arts from Brigham Young University and was selected as a Rhodes Scholar and a Woodrow Wilson Fellow earning a Bachelor of Philosophy from Oxford University. He earned his Master of Arts He was selected as a White House Fellow (1974-1975) and served as Special Assistant to the President and Executive Secretary of the President's Economic Policy Board (1974-1977) in the Ford White House.
He joined the faculty at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1977.
Porter returned to government service at the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s administration, serving as executive secretary of the Cabinet Council on Economic Affairs and as director of White House Office of Policy Development. He rejoined the Harvard faculty in the fall of 1985 as the International Business Machines Corporation Professor of Business and Government and faculty chair of the Senior Managers in Government Program.
He returned to the White House at the beginning of George H. West. Bush"s administration, where he served as Assistant to the President for Economic and Domestic Policy from 1989 to 1993. Porter has twice served as director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard (1995-2000 and 2008-2011).
His teaching and research interests range widely.
In 1987 he inherited Harvard’s course on “The American Presidency” from Richard Neustadt and he has taught the course ever since except for the years when he was serving in the White House. He also teaches a large graduate course on “The Business-Government Relationship in the United States” as well as courses and modules on managing policy development, decision making, and economic policy. His books include,, and edited volumes on Efficiency, Equity, and Legitimacy: The Multilateral Trading System at the Millennium, and most recently, New Directions in Financial Services Regulation.
(Presidential Decision Making describes two organizational...)
(Presidential Decision Making describes two organizational...)
He is a member of the President's Commission on White House Fellows, a member of the board of directors of the White House Historical Association, a trustee of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, and a member of the advisory board of The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University.