Policy Science

Applying Knowledge on Behalf of Human Dignity

Greetings:

This site contains papers of the International Scientific Networks and Government Learning projects, and related professional writing of Lloyd Etheredge. It includes a reference copy of the annotated bibliography of Harold D. Lasswell's work prepared by Rodney Muth et al. and published in 1990: References. (For books, other publications, and teaching materials, and annotations of key works by Ithiel de Sola Pool, see my academic homepage.)

I. International Scientific Networks Project

A. Major Papers

• UN Recommendations: Fresh Thinking for the 21st Century. Prepared for a project of the World Academy of Art and Science to suggest fresh ideas to Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. (January, 2007).
  • Front Matter
  • 1.) A Cultural Affairs Channel.
  • 2.) Strengthening Professional Training for Diplomacy and International Relations.
  • 3.) Visual Display Systems for Millennium Goals & Large-Scale Collaboration.
  • 4.) More Deeply-Connected Language for Middle East Peace
  • 5.) How the UN Can Accelerate Scientific Innovation and Solve Urgent Global Problems
  • 6.) How the UN Can Increase Economic Growth in UDCs.
  • 7.) How the UN Can Foster Policy Analysis, Learning, and International Cooperation to Achieve Its Goals.
  • 8.) How the Secretary General Can Save Money and Increase the Efficiency of the UN's Allied Organizations.
  • 9.) How the UN Can Foster a Rapid-Learning International Health System.
    • Executive Summary - Institute of Medicine Report. This is a pre-print of the Executive Summary. A pre-print of the full report is available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11903#toc (red READ box on left hand side). April, 2007.
    • Supplement: Health Affairs special supplement on rapid-learning health systems. February, 2007
  • 10.) How the Secretary General Can Foster a Global Virtual Public Library with Free Access for UDCs.
  • 11.) How the UN Can Bring the Best Resources for Science and Math Education, K-12, to All Students, Worldwide.
  • 12.) How the UN Can Be a Daily Partner with Health Professionals & Assure the Best and Latest Health Information to Everyone, Worldwide.
• User Interfaces for the Global Virtual Library: Creative Options for Information Freedom and Economics. Revised draft. June 14, 2005.
• Budget and Budget Narrative: US-Islamic World Service. Draft. May 6, 2004.
• Book Prospectus: Planet Broadband and Democratic Leadership: How Visionaries Can Change the World.(11/2003). Full text of earlier (2002) book draft.
• "Consumer-Oriented Broadcasting and Video Archives for Health". Strategy paper invited by a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, re a North American startup. (2001; revised 2002). Jackson Hole Group outline of a digital age strategy for consumer-oriented health information & health management software & reform (slides), compliments of Lynn Etheredge. [The term HEROIC, used on the slides, is an acronym].(September, 2002). Update Spring 2003: Health Information Prescriptions (3/2003) startup announcement for the prototypes in Iowa and Georgia developed by the National Library of Medicine and the Society for Internal Medicine Foundation. Each participating physician receives prescription pads customized to their specifications, wall charts for their offices, etc. Provides patients with a direct online link to specific wwww.medlineplus.gov pages and databases for each condition or topic. Sandy Foote took the lead to bring the pieces together. Initial feedback is highly favorable and the project should be ready to expand across specialties and languages soon. The databases can be accessed via the Internet by physicians and patients in all countries, currently in English and Spanish.
• "How International Broadcasting + the Internet Can Change the World". Presentation prepared for the Challenges to International Broadcasting meeting hosted by Radio Canada International in Montreal, May 21-24, 2000.
• "New Sources of Programming: Examples from North America" re institutional partnerships for a potential global CSPAN.
• "Five Internet Projects That Can Change the World". A basic planning document of the International Scientific Networks Project. (1999). An expanded version, "A Strategy for Human Rights: Five Internet Projects That Can Change the World", prepared for a faculty seminar at Columbia University, is published in an edited volume from the seminar, George G. Andreopolous (Ed.) Concepts and Strategies for International Human Rights (NY: Peter Lang, 2002), pp. 185-211.
• "Global Knowledge Management for Policy: A Proposal" (1997).
• "Overview: A Purchasing Cooperative for Health, Science, and Education for UDCs." A presentation to the World Bank's Global Knowledge Partners Group, NYC (1997). For the current status, see the work of unicttaskforce.org.
• "Stakeholder Financing for International Scientific Channels" (1997).
• "Report of the Lederberg Working Group" (1994).
• "Income-Producing Options - International Scientific Channels" (1994).

B. Working Papers

• Memorandum re the new UK Database of Uncertainties About the Effects of Treatments (DUETS) system. Suggestion of DUETs as a model and political/ intellectual strategy for mental health and NSF social science-related policy questions in the US. (November 2007).
• A new free global colloquium service for technical science! - similar to the Princeton initiative - has been launched, in "alpha release," by UC San Diego Computer Center, NSF, and the Public Library of Science (PLOS): http://www.scivee.tv. This site also provides technical advice for creating presentations and Youtube-like options for research scientists and other users to evolve the technology, create global virtual colloquia series and large-scale collaboration systems. (September, 2007).
• Information from Princeton's University Channel/global C-SPAN startup, to make videos of academic lectures and events from all over the world available to US (and global) audiences, without charge, via the Internet (http://uc.princeton.edu). The site includes an open letter of invitation to the world's universities, thinktanks, and foundations (to submit their own material that might be of interest to wider public audiences) from the estimable President of Princeton, Dr. Shirley Tilghman. (March, 2007). Update: September 2007: A new youtube.com user interface is available at www.youtube.com/uchannel. The Youtube portal provides further technical opportunities (e.g., tags) for students; and also for users, worldwide, to create user groups and global virtual colloquim series in different areas.
• A followup announcement from MIT that all of its 1,800 courses will be online, without charge, by the end of 2007. At the current startup level, there are 1.5 million users/month, 60% from abroad. (March, 2007).
• Startup announcement for the first rapid learning (US healthcare) system, from the US Institute of Medicine and RWJF. The extension to a global system is getting underway with added leadership from the UK. (August, 2006).
• Startup announcement from AAAS (June, 2006).
• Startup announcement! (September 2003). The next step in the development of capabilities for fast discovery international scientific communication. The video-on-demand initiative, led by the New York Academy of Sciences and Dr. Ellis Rubinstein, is described in "Excerpts from the Prospectus for the (Joshua Lederberg) Science Without Borders Program". It brings to life core ideas of the 1994 Lederberg Report and the International Scientific Networks discussions. [In early 2005 the colloquium/ebriefing service was receiving 120,000 hits/year.]
• "Memorandum: Good news: http://videocast.nih.gov", November 2001. NIH's exciting startup of Webcasting/ video-on-demand domestic (global) lecture series with the best and latest ideas from US and non-US scientists: 156 events now scheduled, 716 events recorded and archived for desktop video-on-demand availability to any Internet user. And "Memorandum: Expanding Submarine Cable Capacity by Region". An update re the new terabit/second intercontinental capacities. October 2001.
• Memorandum re MIT's step forward. Story from The New York Times, April 4, 2001 re MIT's initiative to allocate up to $100 million to create public Web sites for its 2,000 courses - available without charge worldwide. A 10-year vision for global science is discussed at the end of article.
• "A New Generation of Public Broadcasting", November 29, 2000. Draft proposal for a reinvention of PBS, with the addition of user-supported CSPANs for different nonprofit institutions and professions, combining Internet and direct-broadcast satellite.
• Memorandum of November 15, 2000 concerning kaisernetwork.org, the first national Internet channel to accelerate professional linkups and policy development (for health) and www.researchchannel.com, a nonprofit startup from the University of Washington.
• Memorandum of September 9, 2000 with the announcements of Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the WebMD Foundation of the initial 10,000 Internet links for health in 130 UDCs.
• "Startup Programming for a Global Affairs Channel" (1999).
• "Opening Remarks: Testimony to the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy" (1998).
• "Draft Plan: A Global Affairs Channel" (1998).
• "Proposal to the ISA Executive Committee" (1997).
• "Internet Colloquium: Technology in Language Instruction". A draft proposal, in the spirit of Yale's EIINet, to use three international capture points and (then) evolve to a large-scale collaboration system. Developed with MIT's Center for Educational Computing Initiatives. (1997).
• EIINet, a successful prototype to evaluate the emerging global Internet for regularly-scheduled global research colloquia. Created at Yale Medical School pursuant to a recommendation of the Lederberg working group. A description in Science published in March, 1996.

II. Government Learning Project

A. Overviews, Literature Reviews and Related Work

• Communication to Dr. James McCarthy, President of AAAS, and the AAAS Governing Council concerning AAAS, the "final favor" requested by Socrates, and the withdrawal of Bruce Alberts. [The redefinition of "conflict of interest" discussed briefly in this message refers to issues discussed in a letter to Attorney General Mukasey (below) on March 26, 2008 that was forwarded to Dr. McCarthy and the AAAS Governing Council.] April 7, 2008.
• Letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey concerning prosecutorial discretion, attesting that the self-correction mechanisms of science have failed and have been exhausted. Includes background documentation concerning three violations of law and the unresponsive revision of National Academy procedures and the official redefinition of "conflict of interest" Policies on Committee Composition and Balance and Conflicts of Interest" and Our Study Process under Bruce Alberts. March 26, 2008.
• Letter to Dr. James McCarthy, President of AAAS. Discusses further NAS erosions after the Carnegie Commission meeting: the hiring of Barbara Boyle Torrey, the hiring of Richard Atkinson, and the erosion of macroeconomic data systems. March 17, 2008.
• Letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey concerning prosecutorial discretion , the erosion of government credibility, and the current paralysis of the government's/NSF's agenda-setting system in several key areas of science. Notes that the National Academy system has gained its extraordinary power because it is a government-chartered entity. Given its violations of law and public trust, scientific damage, and coverup, the National Academy system must be rethought. Prosecution and full public disclosure of the historical record are essential to informed public/scientific discussion and the design of needed reforms. March 12, 2008.
• Letter to Dr. James McCarthy, President of AAAS with further discussion of the mistaken appointment of Bruce Alberts. March 9, 2008.
• Letter to Dr. Holdren. Chair of the AAAS Governing Council, recommending that the Council, at its forthcoming meeting, rescind the appointment of Bruce Alberts to become Editor-in-Chief of Science in March 2008 and reopen the search. January 31, 2008.
• Breach of Contract, Conspiracy, Fraud, and Coverups Affecting NSF Programs. Filing with the Department of Justice. (September 2007).
  • Abstract, Table of Contents, Main Text
  • Attachments - Tab 1. Prefaces to the National Academy Report (1988, 1989)
  • Attachments - Tab 2. Gabriel Almond's "shell game" critique of Luce et al.
  • Attachments - Tab 3. National Damage - Macroeconomics (I). Early warnings. Includes a briefing paper for NSF's Inspector General, "A Breakdown Crafted By Silences" (2002)
  • Attachments - Tab 4. National Damage - Macroeconomics (II). A supporting letter from Robert Reischauer, former head of CBO, and recent statements from 2 Nobel Prize winners and 2 former CEA Chairmen. (Reischauer is commenting on the "Breakdown. . . " paper (2002) at Tab 3)
  • Attachments - Tab 5. Coverup issues: Letter from Donald Kennedy, Editor-in-Chief of Science, and related correspondence.
• NSF Recommendations: Fresh Thinking for the 21st Century. Selected Recommendations for NSF's Five-Year Plan (2006-2011). (March, 2007).
  • Cover letter to the National Science Board.
  • Table of Contents
  • National Challenges
    • 1.) Overview: Meeting Three National Challenges.
      • 2.) Weakening Economic Models and Data Systems.
      • 3.) Politics in a Changing World.
      • 4.) The Impasse of Ideological Ideas.
  • New Opportunities
    • 5.) Science-Citizen Partnerships.
    • 6.) Computer-Assisted Methods to Analyze Communications.
    • 7.) Routine Cross-Cultural Research.
    • 8.) Brain-Mind Connections: Fresh Ideas for Social and Economic Problems.
• "A Project to Rethink and Upgrade Economic Statistics". (November, 2005). An overview letter to Robert Rubin (9/27/2005) and a related memorandum to Dr. David Lightfoot and the NSF Working Group on Transformative Research, "NSF and 67 Ways to Guess Gross Domestic Product." Brings to Dr. Lightfoot's attention a recent Op Ed piece in the Financial Times by John Kay and calls into question the complacency of NSF and the National Science Board.
• "Wisdom and Public Policy" by Lloyd S. Etheredge. A reference copy of a chapter in A Handbook of Wisdom: Psychological Perspectives edited by Robert Sternberg and Jennifer Jordan published by Cambridge University Press in 2005.
• Transformative research and improving NSF processes.. Letter to Dr. Nina Fedoroff's Taskforce, March 2005. Discusses the case of hierarchical imagery and clinical ideas - and reactivated fears and top-level breakdowns of scientific integrity.
• "Increasing Resources for Political Science: Nine Strategies for APSA". Draft (5/7/2004) with a cover letter to Dr. Susanne Rudolph and Dr. Margaret Levi, President and President-elect of APSA. Suggests nine strategies; also a redesignation of the role of the three APSA Vice Presidents, and 50% release time and expenses for the Chair of the Development Committee to develop proposals for "midrange" ($10 million - $100 million, in the definition of the National Science Board) investments.
• "How to Nurture Creativity and Progress in the Social Sciences: Comment on the National Science Board's Draft Report". January, 2003. Supplemental filing recommending 12 Centers for Comparative Foreign Policy at international sites. January, 2003. The NSF Infrastructure Task Force has been charged to identify the investments (e.g., facilities, global observation and measurement capabilities, and datasets) to assure the maximum productivity for research faculty, in all NSF-supported fields, during the next decade. I.e., for state-of-the-art research & fast discovery science about the most important questions in their fields. The national science budget is expected to double and the new infrastructure investment budget under discussion is about $18 billion to $20 billion.
• "Science and Public Policy: Millennium Questions". Prepared for the Policy Sciences meeting, Yale Law School, October 27-29, 2000.
  • New Languages Syllabus. One of the Millennium Questions: "Is it possible to create new languages to aid self-expression, communication, or improve understanding of the physical or social world? Or to expand the range of esthetic experience or the power to communicate or evoke esthetic experience?". A draft syllabus for an interdisciplinary undergraduate course. Revised, July 2004.
• "What's Next? The Intellectual Legacy of Ithiel de Sola Pool". Presented to a symposium at MIT. Later, this was published as the final chapter in the second volume of Ithiel Pool's papers that I edited, Humane Politics and Methods of Inquiry (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publications, 2000). (1997).
• "Wisdom and Good Judgment in Politics" from Political Psychology, 13:3 (1992). The original paper had to be cut substantially and condensed to meet page limitations of the symposium issue. The uncut version flows more smoothly, identifies additional research issues, and begins with the story (apologies to Mark Twain's "The Good Little Boy and the Bad Little Boy") of "The Good President and the Bad President."
• "Thinking About Government Learning". With James Short. From Journal of Management Studies, 20:1 (1983). Definitions (e.g., intelligence & effectiveness, individual & organizational) and three case-study illustrations of the distinctions.
• Flow diagram for a simulation model of the American political system. Based on Aaron Wildavsky's "The Past and Future Presidency" in The Public Interest, 41 (1975). Draft, 1982.
• "Government Learning: An Overview". The original review, supported by NSF, to develop the field with an interdisciplinary foundation. It expanded the idea of cumulative diagnostic repertoires (from The Case of the Unreturned Cafeteria Trays (below)) and laid the foundation for follow-on steps in foreign policy (e.g., Can Governments Learn? & nuclear deterrence ("On Being More Rational Than the Rationality Assumption")) and domestic social & economic policy/ideology. (1981)
• "Decision Making and Learning in Scientific Emergencies: The NRC and Three Mile Island." A review, with Philip Tetlock, of ten literatures in the behavioral sciences to study and improve small group decision making and learning in government. Develops a framework and methodology for multivariate content analysis and AI/cognitive modeling to integrate these approachs and analyze tapes of the meetings of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the Three Mile Island crisis. Among others, builds upon Barber's Power in Committees, Axelrod's cognitive mapping, Holsti, Hermann, Bales, Suedfeld, Steinbruner, Verba, Osgood et al., Janis, Alker, and earlier work by Tetlock and myself. Still a state-of-the-art research design, esp. for political science. (1980).
• "Why Do Politicians Speak Vaguely?". A brief exercise re an aspect of professional political behavior, with fourteen specialized theories, along the lines of Cafeteria Trays. (1976).
• "The Case of the Unreturned Cafeteria Trays". An introduction to thirty theories that are useful for public policy and the analysis of individual behavior. With an independent file to download only Figure 1. (1976).

B. Modeling Non-Rational Behavior

• Grand Challenges: Mapping the Brain-Mind Connection of Emotion and Politics. A more developed statement of ideas for the NSF Report on Grand Challenges of Mind and Brain (below)(November 2006).
• Comments on the NSF Report on Grand Challenges of Mind and Brain . September 15, 2006. Suggested studies of hierarchical images/hierarchical psychology and effects on nonrational behavior, conflict (including recruitment of adolescent males to terrorism), motivational arousal and suppression, cognitive inhibition, problems of labor force and economic participation of Blacks and other victims of historical discrimination in US and other countries.
• July 2003 & August 2003: Submission to the National Mental Health Advisory Committee (NIMH) concerning new measures of the properties of strong (e.g., reified) hierarchical images to clarify causal mechanisms in motivational arousal and inhibition, including types of non-rational behavior (especially, in extreme form, mental illness), the development of rational and independent thought, and linkages with brain physiology. In the long run, there may be implications or clues for improved treatment of some forms of mental illness. Based on the new approach to the study of ideological assumptions developed in the 1980s that continues to be delayed, with an unknown future, in the current NSB infrastructure-investment process. Letters of July 17, 2003 and of July 21, 2003 to Dr. Insel, Chairman. The letter of July 21 includes a summary review of 55+ features of liberal activism to illustrate potential shared processes in bipolar phenomena clarified by the model. Letters refer to the forthcoming "Wisdom in Public Policy" chapter (online above, pp. 20-24) to place the observations in a wider context (e.g., Plato's cave). Followup letters on August 2, 2003 to Dr. Virginia Cain on 8/2/2003 at NIH re applications to the study of anomie and addictions, and measurement issues. And on 8/4/2003, with a copy of an early model of Black domination/oppression by Abram Kardiner and Lionel Ovesey suggesting a syndrome with common features (e.g., passivity, inhibitions of rationality and higher cognitive abilities, increased stress, etc.) for subordinated Blacks and women, subordinates in organizations, Mexicans (now) or native Americans, etc. & a shared causal mechanism (of hierarchical entrapment/hierarchical lock-ins via reified images that create a defining context for the self) in heightening stress-related physiological effects and health behaviors for subordinates in status hierarchies.
• "Measuring Hierarchical Models of Political Behavior: Oedipus and Reagan, Russia and America, Part I" (1996). A presentation of a wider set of issues, expanding upon earlier policy work (below) to test ideological assumptions. (My co-author, the psychoanalyst Lawrence Freedman, became ill and we set aside further work.)
• "On Being More Rational Than the Rationality Assumption: Dramatic Requirements, Nuclear Deterrence and the Agenda for Learning." Rational deterrence via making rationality assumptions and using the non-rational psychology of impression management. Also, improving the use of social science for learning and the control of the US/USSR arms race. A paper during the Cold War later published in Eric Singer and Valerie Hudson (Eds.), Political Psychology and Foreign Policy. (1992).
• "Hardball Politics: A Model" from Political Psychology 1:1 (1979), pp. 3 - 26. The lead article in our first issue. A new model based on progress in the psychoanalytic study of narcissism. The paper includes a comparison with 13 earlier personality-based explanations of this type of power-oriented behavior and decision making in international & domestic politics. (The original formulation was Lasswell's power-compensation hypothesis in Power and Personality). Later, I used the model to analyze baseline behaviors and learning/nonlearning in Can Governments Learn?. The model identifies a syndrome that includes non-rational (sometimes, self-deceptive and self-destructive) elements and may improve our understanding of puzzling cases that are not fully explained by traditional realpolitik models. [Including the new (post Cold War) era of "optional wars."] Figure 2 explains what psychologists mean by the term "borderline," and related terms like "idealizing transferences" for images of high offices in the psychology of ambitious, upwardly mobile, and aggressive people.

C. Domestic Policy (including ideological assumptions, economics, and science policy)

• 2006 and 2007
  • See the NSF Recommendations: Fresh Thinking for the 21st Century report in section A. Overviews, Literature Reviews and Related Work, above.
• 2005
  • A copy of an email to National Academy of Science members (May 2005) and others. The message forwarded an editorial from The New York Times (May 9, 2005) publicly indicating, for the first time, that nobody knows how to interpret National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council reports and recommendations & expressing hope for a civic upgrade under the new NAS President.
  • A copy of an email to National Academy of Science members (March 2005) asking their help for a civic initiative to raise the standards of the NAS/NRC system. Contains background information from Milbank (below), and Reischauer and a letter to Science (February, 2005) referring to Carl Sagan's prediction of cultural and civic erosion.
  • A copy of Dana Milbank's February 2004 article, circulated with a cover note, after a year of further inaction (2/5/2005). "White House Forecasts Often Miss the Mark".
  • A brief summary, beginning in the 1990's, to place several of the following items into context:
    • At the beginning of the decade, the National Research Council's professional staff recommended an initiative to develop new measures and statistical controls (and test ideological assumptions) to improve economic forecasting & evidence-based democratic discussions. The staff recommendation grew from discussions that I initiated with them (after an earlier proposal was derailed in the 1980s) and they arranged for an invitation to develop a draft prospectus (below). Dr. Sue Woolsey, a former political appointee and wife of a CIA Director was used, by Dr. Frank Press (then director of the NAS/NRC system), to kill the project and counsel the staff to shut up about initiatives along these lines.
    • Subsequently, Dr. Woolsey received a promotion and Bruce Alberts, head of the NAS/NRC system, hired Mrs. Barbara Torrey (discussed below) to replace her. Mrs. Torrey maintained the constraints on the behavioral sciences and supervised the staff (e.g., economics, social policy, education, and national statistics)into the early years of this current decade.
    • During the 1990s the President of the University of California system, Jack Peltason, tried (e.g., through a telephone call to President Clinton's science adviser) to reverse the scientific erosion and civic marginalizing of American universities. However his successor, Dr. Richard Atkinson, withdrew the support of the UC system in a letter (letter from Dr. Atkinson) widely circulated in the UC system. He expressed the view that universities should not contest these issues about the role of evidence-based v. belief-based public policy. Dr. Bruce Alberts hired Dr. Atkinson to provide the senior/national scientific supervision for the National Research Council's initiatives, and selection of its study panels, for the behavioral sciences - a post which he still holds as of this writing (May 2005).
    • Dr. Alberts and the Governing Council of the National Research Council have been well-informed about the gaps and problems of missing statistical controls needed for reliable scientific research. Although frequently informed about the nature of the problems, Dr. Warren Washington and the National Science Board/National Science Foundation continued to use the NAS/NRC system as its contractor for agenda-setting advice concerning national research investments for social and economic sciences.
  • 2004
    • Across these years, there have been at least three unsuccessful investigations by the National Science Board/National Science Foundation Inspector General's staff. Across these years, too, the earlier (predictable and uncorrected) statistical problems of macro-economic forecasting of GDP, recessions, government revenues, etc. continued to grow, with damaging consequences to the nation and our social science research capabilities.
    • [Today, the field of macroeconomic forecasting is almost stagnant because there are few academic specialists left and - without new data systems to test new ideas - few capable younger economists enter the field.]
    • Most recently, the NAS/NRC system was relied upon again by the NSB and NSF for the latest round of advice concerning new research infrastructure investments for fast discovery economics & social science in the 21st century. In this current planning cycle the NAS/NRC system derailed all innovation for improved economic data systems and renewed scientific competition from new ideas - not a word of originality - from the professional staff & no honest scientific mention of the sharp criticisms and aggressively suppressed ideas within the scientific community.
    • [Several letters of historical interest also are included in the References section of the Website.]
  • Letter to Dr. Warren Washington, National Science Board, August 14, 2004 reviewing deficiencies in the search for a new NSF Assistant Director for the Social & Behavioral Sciences and Economics. Also discusses the need for the National Science Board to move more quickly re new economic and world politics measures in a changing world (e.g., with one observation available only every 3 months for economic time series) and conduct by Dr. Bruce Alberts et al. that inhibited the independence, quality, and initiative of the NAS/NRC professional staff. Letter to Dr. Warren Washington, National Science Board, August 22, 2004 with supplemental information about inhibiting management of social science researchers in the NAS/NRC advisory system; includes copies of two Washington Post stories about Mrs. Barbara Torrey, who was chosen by Dr. Bruce Alberts et al. to supervise the social science staff and projects at the NRC in the 1990s and the early years of this decade. [Mrs. Torrey is reported to have tried, apparently for political motives, and in violation of government employment law and the First Amendment, to fire and defame a young government researcher who (legitimately) provided unclassified estimates of casualties in the first Iraq War to a reporter.] The Washington Post stories review the lawsuit on behalf of the 29-year-old woman, a GS-11 analyst, with support from the American Civil Liberties Union, Covington & Burling, the American Statistical Association's Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights, and others which shredded the veracity and legitimacy of Mrs. Torrey's claims and justifications. [Subsequently, Mrs. Torrey was hired by Drs. Bruce Alberts, Smelser, et al. to supervise the NAS/NRC social science staff and projects in economics, social policy, and national statistics.]
  • Washington Post article, 3/15/2004, "Link Between Taxation, Unemployment is Absent" by Jonathan Weisman. An (unsettling) portrayal of the de facto scientific standards of academic macroeconomic theory and national policy advice supported by NSF (and shaped by its advisory committees) across the past 40+ years: “We know it’s there. We just can’t find it in the data.”
  • Washington Post article, 2/24/2004, "White House Forecasts Often Miss the Mark" by Dana Milbank, noting that the (still, uncorrected) breakdown of scientific models of the US economy became dramatically apparent 7 years ago . . . Forwarded to Dr. Washington and the National Science Board and to Dr. Bruce Alberts (NAS/NRC) as a supplement to earlier petitions.
  • Report from Michael Brintnall re a successful and dramatic turn-around in government funding for social and behavioral sciences (against a baseline of 0.5% for non-defense, non-homeland security). Includes a 22% increase for economic statistics. February 2004.
• 2003
  • Petitions to the National Science Board (12/2/2003) and National Academy of Sciences/NRC (12/7/2003) to terminate the NAS/NRC contracts for behavioral science advice; and for recusals from this termination decision process of officials and members responsible for the old system. Expresses concern that academic science has captured too many government agencies. Cover letter to Dr. John Marburger (12/9/2003)[excerpt: "It is a changing, uncertain, and sometimes dangerous world. And these are exactly the circumstances when we need social science to assess reality and be sure that we have an independent capacity to update our images and understanding about how the economy is changing and the world beyond our borders. The nation cannot afford to rely upon these two institutions for effective planning. The institutional problems are extensive and similar to the breakdowns associated with the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger . . ." Follow up petition on December 13, 2003 asking the National Science Board to apply principles of justice in addition to cancelling contracts. Specifically, that they apply the same serious penalties, and send the same messages, as if the observed misconduct involved cancer research by a lower status contractor.
  • A background letter of December 2003, concerning the uncorrected capture and misuse of the NSF/NAS/NRC system by interest groups within a national science Establishment, with the predictable effect of monopoly power - to restrain competition and innovation in economics and other behavioral sciences. Similar letters to Senators McCain and Bennett and Representative Boehlert, Chairs of the Congressional oversight committees.
  • Two recent Op Ed pieces from the Financial Times by other authors. First, Dr. Lee Bollinger's commentary on November 13, 2003 calling for an historic reassessment of how we organize and use our universities to address urgent challenges. For example Dr. Bollinger, the President of Columbia University, distinguishes between respect for the academic freedom of individual tenured faculty members and the requirement for university leaders to play a larger role for new hiring (e.g., he cites economics) to change "intellectual solipsism." Second, a copy of "Bring the President's Nerds Back In From the Cold" by Robert Hahn and Scott Wallsten (October 30,2003) reporting the loss of scientific/academic credibility in Washington and the demotion of the Council of Economic Advisers. [I believe the demotion reflected frustration and legitimate anger increased by the failure of the 53 leading mathematical macroeconomic models two years ago (including growing unreliability of government revenue and other estimates); and especially the failure of self-correction by institutions responsible for the reliability and rapid improvement of science-based policy advice.]
  • Overview of intellectual and institutional breakdowns [e.g., NSF, NAS/NRC, CEA, Dept. of Commerce, the economics profession] for the National Economic Council (October 2003). Self-correction is unlikely. No CEO or Board of Directors of a major corporation would tolerate a corporate accounting system, for their own decisions, as delayed and unreliable as our national accounting system has become. Notes Alan Greenspan's (ignored) testimony, several years ago, that we have diminishing returns to perpetual reanalysis of established datasets. Suggests that there is a changing world that needs to be understood and that we will need to encourage new, experimental, and prototype datasets; scientific competition; and to anticipate a long-term and interdisciplinary process.
  • Two overview letters in August 2003 to Congressional oversight committees discussing the breakdown of the 53 models and damage to the country in the historical context of the cumulative mismanagement and institutional failure of government scientific institutions - e.g., as a result of "interest group capture" of these public institutions and inadquate safeguards.
  • As of August 2003 the Fed had cut interest rates 13 times since 2001 without seeing the effects that established academic models predicted. And since 2001 all 53 principal macroeconomic models ( private sector/academic, CBO, and Administration) have become unreliable for policy-making and prediction. A column by Paul Krugman of July 25, 2003 in The New York Times confirming that last-generation macro-economic models have failed & continuing damage to the country. The problem also was confirmed recently by Cathy Minehan, President of the Boston Fed, at a research conference that she convened in June. She said in her opening address: "All our models and forecasts say we'll see a better second half. But we said that last year. Now don't get me wrong: mathematical models are wonderful tools. But are there ways this process can be done better? . . . I hope so." [Quoted S. Dubner, "Calculating the Irrational in Economics," The New York Times, June 28, 2003, p. A17). A news story "The Amazing Disappearing Tax Revenue" by Jonathan Weisman in The Washington Post of July 26, 2003 (p. E01) reports an expert consensus in Washington that none of the scientific models (CBO, Executive branch, private sector) for forecasting government revenue are working reliably: $270 billion+ of government revenue unexpectedly is missing - and the explanations are unknown and beyond the capacity of current data sets to explain. A letter to the National Science Board, forwarding a column by Robert J. Samuelson in The Washington Post of July 30, 2003 that also discusses the failure of all models for science-based policy making and prediction since 2001. [On August 6 Samuelson corrected one of his numbers in this column: the household survey data, after a statistical adjustment, showed a job loss of nearly 700,000 from early 2001 through June 2003], The letter draws an analogy to FAA investigations of airplane crashes and recommends that NSF shift to a fast discovery mode.
  • A letter to the National Science Board - July 3, 2003 reviewing three competing models that might help to explain why the breakdown of science-based economic policy has become the most serious and egregious failure of NSF programs. Includes an application of Kuhn's model of blocked innovation and learning. ["Monopoly rent" for economists. For political scientists, any measures of hierarchical images that show non-zero coefficients (e.g., for Blacks) for politically- linked behavior will begin to shift the life's work of reigning members of the National Academy of Sciences to the "history" section of the social sciences (and also change the last generation mythologizing of the American politics field]. Contrasts NAS/NRC problems as a sole-source contractor and resulting damage to the country with the exemplary leadership of the Medicine (Institute of Medicine) and Engineering Academies in their areas of responsibility. As a result of several decades of high-quality collaboration, there were hundreds of sensors aboard the space shuttle that permit us to do fast-discovery science to learn from the recent disaster - a contrast with the debilitating inhibition of NAS/NRC leadership for better economic data systems.
• 2002
  • Letter from Dr. Robert Reischauer, former Director of the Congressional Budget Office and member of the Exec. Committee of Harvard's Board of Overseers, confirming serious deficiencies in national data systems for economic research and policy making. 12/2002. Note that there may be several reasons for the current failure of all 53 last-generation scientific models - e.g., a.) changing reality; b.) bad data; and c.) essentially good (but too narrow) economic models also can give unreliable results because - for a discipline that uses regression analysis to compute averaged coefficients from historical time series - of the cumulative error and garbage knowingly produced by two decades of continuing failures of scientific and statistical integrity. Discusses failures to measure adequately and control for the (psychological) treatment variables that were (and often remain) a principal component of government policy. (See A Breakdown Crafted By Silences, below).
  • Proposal to Senator Mikulski and the National Science Board. Suggests development of Evidence-Based Policy Centers, responsive to state and local officials, civic groups, and individual citizens. (August 14, 2002).
  • "A Breakdown Crafted by Silences: Scientific Mismanagement and National Policy Error". A longer analytic paper about the issues (below) for the Inspector General's Office, National Science Foundation (September 10, 2002). Supplemental filing noting the independent evaluation of the National Association for Business Economics that about 20% of the "final" GDP numbers (a $2 trillion component) are potentially inaccurate and also may confound real changes with inflation.
  • Letter re economic data reliability & forecasting issues for CBO (August 6, 2002). News stories on August 1, 2002 suggested that erroneous government economic data for 1999-2001 caused Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve to mis-time policy interventions; and contributed to the costs and continuing effects of the recent recession. The letter to Mr. Crippen at CBO reviews concerns about deficient scientific performance and oversight; includes a copy of a letter to Dr. Colwell at NSF (August 1, 2002) about the same issues.
  • NSB oversight review of data, econometric & integrity issues. (June 5, 2002). Emphasizes logic-of-science and statistical concerns about effects of missing variables on current economic forecasting (e.g., GDP, tax revenue, Social Security). Notes that the effects of even random measurement error are not random when using regression analysis (as economists do) - e.g., random measurement error in the independent variable, in the bivariate case, always biases the computed coefficients toward zero. Suggests that the scientists who control the NAS/NRC process may have lacked the statistical training to appreciate their wider damage: Without measurement of relevant variables that government officials are seeking to change, the style of conducting national macro-economic research, via the regime imposed by the NAS/NRC, is equivalent to biological/chemical research without washing test tubes. They corrupted the data series and made economic forecasts based on regression analysis and quarterly data since the election of Ronald Reagan uninterpretable. {Alternatively, they may have known what they were doing.]
  • Overview for NSF re stall-out of progress in economics. Expresses puzzlement at the pattern of failed scientific integrity we observe by Dr. Bruce Alberts er al. at the NRC and seigniors of the National Academy of Sciences: killing any major competition between models, preventing measurement of missing variables, failing to improve the national data series that are unreliable, and being institutionally indifferent to scientific failures of forecasts.
  • A further critique of the Committee on National Statistics, operated by the National Research Council with public funds from five federal agencies. Discusses the negligent and deficient performance of the National Research Council/National Academies during the past decade in this area of their responsibility, including the blocking of new measures and datasets for intellectual progress in economics, and political self-neutering. Also discusses observations by Robert Solow and Frank Press. (March 20, 2002).
  • Letter of February 21, 2002 for Dr. Rita Cowell, NSF, calling to her attention continuing (and current) self-censorship of the NAS/NRC Committee on National Statistics of high-priority research that would improve our understanding of the economy and inform public decision making.
  • Letter of January 30, 2002 for NSF's Inspector-General. A cross-agency comparison of standards for political independence and scientific integrity, re lower de facto historical standards & unfair treatment of social scientists dependent upon NSF. Letter of January 5, 2002 for NSF's Inspector-General. Notes that 600 scientists provided the Luce Commission (created at the request of NSF and supported with public funds) with detailed discussions of their life's work and research programs, and visions for their Centers and the country. The letter raises a null hypothesis and requests review of the safeguards of the National Academy of Sciences to prevent rationalized self-interests of their judges, in their positions of public trust, from biasing the National Academy of Sciences' designations of the "leading edge" priority research programs in the social sciences for the past decade. No disclosures of self-interest were included in the published Report; its "many others could have been chosen" discussion of how decisions were made behind closed doors was not revealing; and the letter also asks for an oversight review of whether the conflicts of interest were disclosed as part of the internal review and sign-off of the Academy.
• 2001
  • Overview for Dr. Irwin Feller (December 2, 2001) and Overview for Dr. Bruce Alberts (November 23, 2001). Warns of untested foundations of macro-economic theory; and the paralysis in testing ideological assumptions that limits the empirical base for democratic discussion, undergraduate education, and good policy making. Preliminary filing with Dr. Eamon Kelly, National Science Board (December 5, 2001).
  • "Will the Bush Administration Unravel?" (June, 2001). A comparison of George W. Bush with Warren G. Harding & cautionary forecast of the potential for a Teapot Dome type of scandal. Includes commentary on J. David Barber's typology of Presidential character, and the impeachment survival of the active-positive Bill Clinton v. the outcome achieved by the active- negative Richard Nixon, despite Richard Nixon's well-deserved reputation for hardball political acumen. Followup to "Will the Bush Administration Unravel?" (December 4, 2003) re the risk of a Teapot Dome type of scandal: A letter to William Card and Senator Frist discussing Robert Pear's (attached) story about Mr. Thomas Scully's ethics waiver and conflicts of interest while negotiating tens of billions of dollars of benefits in the recent Medicare legislation. Also discusses message-sending issues.
  • Letter to the Editor of PS re ideology, the stall-out of the social sciences, and restarting progress in empirically- based v. belief-based social and economic policy. (January, 2001).
• Earlier. [Several letters of historical interest are included in the References section of the Website.]
  • "Evidence-Based Policy Centers: A Proposal to Reinvent Government Through Social Science". Organizing constituencies (including state & local) for question-posing and question-answering. (1999).
  • "Problems of Scientific Integrity That Affect Unfunded Research." Testimony to the U. S. Commission on Research Integrity. April 10, 1995. Harvard Medical School. History, possible misperceptions, and discussion of institutional reforms, involving self-crafted limitations of scientific agenda-setting institutions. Discusses the mistaken top-down decision to kill the testing of ideological assumptions and block the measurement for key variables in economic policy and reliable science-based advising.
  • "Commentary: The Scientific Scandal of the 1980s." Political Psychology, 15:3 (1994). An invited discussion, ten years after the original publication of "President Reagan's Counseling" (below), that addressed the "Emperor's New Clothes" problem and non-testing of ideological assumptions, esp. weakening capacity for science-based economic policy. Comments upon several hypotheses - e.g., innocence (unlikely), bullying & intimidation, bad decision makers, Establishment self-defense, intensification of inhibition and fear inside vivid hierarchical dramas.
  • "Public Drama, Economic Growth, and the Agenda for Learning" (1992 rev.). This is the 3 x 3 table, and new approach to ideological sensibilities and zeal inside Plato's Cave, and making ideological claims testable, that is partly presented in the papers on liberal activism and President Reagan's libertarian conservatism (below). It is an approach, via developments in self psychology, in the spirit of theory-development in physics - i.e., a more integrative theory of a wider class of phenomenon (as outlined in the proposal to the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council for a new research program), that also renders them testable and creates a basis for an empirically-based dialogue and learning. Notice (footnote 29) that there are national probability samples from 1957 and 1976 with TAT-based measures of achievement motivation that can establish baselines for future testing of claims to alter national modal personality. Measures along the lines of Cartwright et al. (footnote 4) also might be adapted for exploratory studies.
  • "The Liberal Case: Political Activism in a Hierarchical Drama" (1992 rev.) This is the first section of the paper (a second section reviewed earlier theories of liberal activism and ideology). A summary table of 55+ features of a hierarchical imagery model of liberal activism, grouped into several higher-order dimensions.
  • "A Proposal to Study Leadership, Motivation, and Economic Growth". Draft prepared at the invitation of the staff of the national agenda-setting Commission of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council (1990). A proposal to reconsider urgent initiatives derailed by the Luce/Smelser Commission. Outlines a naitonal strategy based on the model of the Michelson-Morley experiment in physics.
  • "President Reagan's Counseling" from Political Psychology 5:4 (1984), pp. 737-740. An initial overview re understanding and evaluating these ideological arguments. There are a group of libertarian conservatives who are remarkably self-assured about their moral + empirical preaching that strong and healthy, responsible, self-starting individuals are created by government (pro-market/no-welfare-state) economic policy and are the key to making the whole package - market economies, democracy, "1,000 points of light" and individual lives, work. These ideas are in good repute within clinical psychology. Libertarian conservatives may be wrong (or right) about the transference - i.e., if the applicable arena turns-out to be only family relationships, rather than a national political economy psychodrama.

D. International Relations

• Memorandum concerning two developments in IR theory: 1.) the addition of hubris-related models as scientific explanations of cases in American foreign policy, esp. the Iraq War (w/ new evidence from Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (2006); and the still-undeveloped potential of new global communications technologies for political acceleration, including both conflict and new rapid-learning systems for science and healthcare. August 25, 2006.
• "NSA Surveillance: Secret Truths and Historic Choices", a presentation prepared for the Political Psychology colloquium series at George Washington University, (Draft - March 2006). Handout.
• "Nine Options to Reduce Illegitimate Surveillance of the Internet", (Draft - January, 2006).
• "The Internet Was a Technology of Freedom", Op Ed piece (January 2006) concerning the Bush Administration's global (domestic + foreign) surveillance system. The reference is to the late Ithiel de Sola Pool's Technologies of Freedom.
• "Testing Two Propositions from Political Psychology" (November, 2005). A suggested test of the Can Governments Learn? model of optional wars using the emerging information about the Bush Administration's Iraq War decision making. [By contrast with Realist/rational choice or simple misperception theories, this political psychology model of optional wars is closer to the Greek theory of hubris.] Also, a suggested test of the (June 2001, below) "Will the Bush Administration Unravel?" prediction, based on the James D. Barber's work and the similarity of George Bush to President Warren Harding in Barber's framework. If the Harding analogy is apt, the theory suggests that Vice President Cheney played a large role in the initiative to extend a war from Afghanistan to Iraq and presenting this case to the President.
• Council on Foreign Relations Report on American Non-Learning. A final draft of a forthcoming Report by a Council on Foreign Relations taskforce on lesson-drawing and non-learning across six American interventions since the early 1990s. [I studied three earlier return engagements [Can Governments Learn?] in Central America, from the 1950s (Guatemala), 1960s (Cuba)and Iran-contra and agree with several of the observations, although with a more psychological explanation.
• Symposium: McNamara's Lessons and The Fog of War edited for APSA's Perspectives on Politics. Includes an editor's introduction and a contribution with my list of nine lessons. And contributions by Richard Ned Lebow, Michael Shapiro, and Karen Turner. Draws upon the social sciences and humanities to propose three learning strategies. March 2004.
• Statement for the House Appropriations Subcommittee re three fresh ideas for American foreign policy/public diplomacy, esp. concerning the Muslim world. February, 2004. Outlines health, education, and linkup strategies for political leadership and to use new & emerging (rather than last-generation mass media) communications technology to benefit the lives of people.
• Recommendation for 12 Centers for Comparative Foreign Policy (January 24, 2003) as a NSF infrastructure investment in new observation sites over the next decade. Builds upon the work of political psychologists re misperception and learning, and of Paul Kennedy et al. re "pivotal states" in the developing world that are likely to become major forces for good, or ill, in their regions and the international system in the 21st century: Algeria, Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa and Turkey. Also adds three countries with greater cultural distance from the US where, as a result, misperceptions could be more likely to affect relations: China, Japan, Russia. As a departure from past practice, the Centers will be established overseas (with collaborators in the countries to be studied) rather than in the US. Suggests about $80+ million over the next decade.
• "Deterring Saddam Hussein: A Dangerous Fantasy" (1/3/2003). An Op Ed piece drawing upon the contributions of political psychology to international relations theory. Suggests three tests that deterrence advocates must meet. Points out that the assumptions of deterrence theory do not match Saddam Hussein's personality profile. Forecasts that messianic ambition and absolute confidence in eventual triumph will cause deterrence policies to fail because he will overreach and miscalculate, resulting in a self-destructive war with the US. Responds to an unrealistic display ad in the The New York Times by Dr. John Mearsheimer and other IR theorists advocating reliance upon rational-choice deterrence.
• "Five Internet Projects That Can Change the World" (1999). Also, from the International Scientific Networks project (above).
• "BCCI: The Real Story." Another perspective on Clark Clifford's possible role and oversight. (September, 1992).
• "Change (and Learning) in World Politics: Case Selection and Theory Development." Unpublished draft prepared for the Mershon Center (1991).
• "Relationship-Building as a Basis for Security." Notes for a faculty working group on Redefining Security, Yale University. An early, brief discussion of lessons from the history of international relations, relationship-building, & telecommunications that became the international scientific networks projects. (May, 1991).
• "Lesson-Learning in International Relations Since 1500: Are Principled Dispute Settlements Superior?. Draft proposal to build upon/test the theories of Roger Fisher & the Harvard Negotiation Project. (1990).
• "Managerial Responsibility and the World's Need: Perception and Misperception in American Foreign Policy." A framework and seven hypotheses from different bodies of literature to study US bilateral relationships, learning and non-learning, and inform the curriculum for new foreign policy professionals. Builds upon Neustadt's Alliance Politics; uses Jervis as a baseline to establish beginner's biases. (1990).
• "Promoting Democratic Values: The Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Experiment." With Erik Wilenz. (1990).
• Proposal for the Goheen Report. Original proposal (October 9, 1987) for a global CSPAN initiative to link-up APSIA schools (Association for Professional Training in International Relations) and counterpart graduate training institutions in other countries to support the development of professional diplomacy. In the spirit of the relationship-building ideas (1991).
• "Is American Foreign Policy Ethnocentric? Notes Toward a Propositional Inventory" (1988).
• "The Old Imagery of War is Outdated." Op Ed piece from The New York Times, May 27, 1981. Nuclear deterrence and underlying simple images of security from World War II that ought to be updated. The miniaturization and transportability of (nuclear) weapons of mass destruction require rethinking the importance of political relationships.
• "Hardball Politics: A Model" from Political Psychology 1:1 (1979), pp. 3 - 26. The lead article in our first issue. A new theory based on the recent psychoanalytic study of narcissism: for students, there is a useful review of 13 earlier approaches to personality-based explanations of this type of power-oriented behavior and decision making in international & domestic politics. (The original formulation was Lasswell's power-compensation hypothesis in Power and Personality.) Later, the theory helped to analyze baseline behaviors and learning/nonlearning in Can Governments Learn?. The model identifies a syndrome that includes non-rational (sometimes, self-deceptive and self-destructive) elements and may improve our understanding of puzzling cases that are not fully explained by traditional realpolitik models. [Including the new (post Cold War) era of "optional wars."] Figure 2 is a useful diagram to explain what psychologists mean by a term like "borderline," and related terms like "idealizing transferences" for images of high offices in the psychology of ambitious, upwardly mobile, and aggressive people.

E. Other

• "Better Options for Montgomery County: Upgrading Cable TV Business Models." Testimony, as an individual, re implementing broadband/telework options quickly along the I-270 corridor and elsewhere in Montgomery County, MD. (July 18, 2002).

Contact: Lloyd Etheredge. If you reached this Web page while searching for papers on national health policy, that's my brother, Lynn Etheredge. (Re policy learning, his "On the Archeology of Health Care Policy: Periods and Paradigms, 1975 - 2000" published by the Institute of Medicine in 2001 might be of interest.)

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I have included a References page on this site, with current documents that are helpful to understand the Internet, several documents and hard-to-locate citations from papers, and misc. items. And a brief Biography page.

The Policy Sciences Center Inc. is a public foundation created at Yale Law School in 1948 by Harold D. Lasswell, Myres McDougal, and George Dession.

This page was last updated on April 7, 2008.