Column about ‘first 100 days’ on OUP blog
My column “Let’s end the first hundred days” has been posted on the Oxford University Press blog. Read the column.
Apr 29
Review of “Four Crises” in Public Integrity
Public Integrity has published a review of Four Crises of American Democracy by Peter Federman of the University of Kansas. Read the review. “To merely say this book is prescient would be doing a disservice to the text; its relevance and accuracy in describing our national climate is almost unnerving,” Federman writes. “This is a book for citizens who care about democracy and find beauty and excitement in the fragility of this ‘great experiment.'”
Paper forthcoming in PPMG
My paper “The aims of public administration: Reviving the classical view” has been accepted for publication in Perspectives on Public Management and Governance. The working version of the paper is available here. More about PPMG here.
Appointment at UMass Amherst School of Public Policy
I’m honored to be selected as the inaugural Director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The announcement is here. I’m also grateful to have had the opportunity to work with my colleagues at the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri since 2015.
Talk at La Follette School: Sectionalist governance in the US and Europe
I gave a talk at the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on March 28. The title was: “Turner’s convergence: Sectionalist governance in the US and Europe.” Listen to the talk and download Powerpoint for the presentation here.
Conversation about “Four Crises” on SiriusXM Insight, March 23
I talked about Four Crises of American Democracy with John Fugelsang on his SiriusXM Insight show, Tell Me Everything, on March 23. Listen to the interview here. Fugelsang says: “The political climate in the 2016 presidential election has only reinforced the perception that we are in a state of crisis. Roberts’ new book is amazing in how well it distills and explains the root causes of the crises facing our democracy and how they might be addressed. It is informative and also compulsively readable.”
Interview with KPFA’s Mitch Jeserich
I talked about Four Crises of American Democracy with Mitch Jeserich, host of KPFA’s Letters and Politics, on March 13. Listen to the interview here.
World Bank blog discusses “Four Crises of American Democracy”
On a World Bank blog, Sina Odugbemi discusses Four Crises of American Democracy. Odugbemi says that the book “furnishes us with a way of thinking about what might be wrong with liberal democracy in any specific national context that is as elegant and as thought-provoking as anything that I have encountered recently.” Read the review.
Conversation on federal spending at Mizzou Law
I participated in a conversation about the longterm sustainability of federal entitlement programs with Curtis Dubay at Mizzou Law today. The conversation was sponsored by the Mizzou Law’s chapter of the Federalist Society and moderated by 3L Hannah Mudd.
Harris visits Law and Public Policy class
Judge Jeff Harris visited with my Law and Public Policy class at Mizzou Law today. Judge Harris, presently circuit judge of Missouri’s 13th Judicial Circuit, talked to the class about his experience in all three branches of Missouri government. His visit was hosted by a student team consisting of EC Duckworth, Ariel Kiefer, Cailynn Hayter, and Ellen Henrion.
Alasdair S. Roberts 
