Massive Hurricanes

This has been a light year for hurricanes in the US (much to the delight of climate change deniers - and others who don't have a firm grasp on statistical inference).  However, a massive hurricane is rolling across the Pacific Ocean right now.  For those that follow hurricanes this story is important to track.

It will be interesting to watch the international response and recovery efforts - as always.

An Evaluation of the CDC "Zombie Preparedness" Efforts

The CDC generated a great deal of attention for it "zombie preparedness" page.  I have been concerned that the effort generated more heat than light (more attention than action).  An evaluation report is finally in.  My initial reading suggests that there is still no evidence of changed individual preparedness  -- just evidence of attention -- but this may be of interest to many.  It does illustrates a common problem in evaluation.  Assessing attention is much easier that assessing actual changes in behavior or other policy outcomes.  Evaluation often involves the easy to observe rather than the intended (but often difficult to measure) outcome.  

We are still in hurricane season.

With the initial media attention focusing on how the partial federal shutdown affecting parks, it is nice to see some attention to that other, less obvious casualities of the budget battles.  See the story here for an example of how the shutdown affects disaster preparedness... and how federal bureaucrats work to keep us safe.

My recent feature on the London School of Economics American Politics and Policy Blog

My research has been featured on the London School of the Economics' American Politics and Policy blog.  This blog post has a stripped down version of my recent JPART article on trust in the DHS.  This is a simple introduction.  For more information, you can check out the full article.

One of the dangers of numbers

One (fair) complaint about evidence-based public management -- when it relies on quantitative assessments of performance, social problems, etc. -- is that numbers sometimes create a sense of definiteness and finality.  The news out of Colorado related to the recent flood provides a good example.

An example of the complexity of EBPM that hits close to home

My high school alma mater is caught up in an EBPM controversy.  The most recent ratings came out and my old district was one of the few large school districts to fail to meet the state standards.  They are shooting back that the metrics used to evaluate districts are flawed.  Read the report and decide for yourself.

I will keep an eye on this as an excellent example of the politics of EBPM -- and one that hits close to (literally) home.

Budget cuts are pro-HIV... apparently

It was really only a matter of time.  The coverage of the sequester-based cuts has been strange.  Of course, there was a major uproar over the threat of longer waits at airports.  The major cuts were held back from the more obvious (and more public) areas.   This fed the narrative that the cuts did not really have much of an impact -- which implied that government was so bloated that a major cut would not be disruptive.  More than one budget hawk let out a major guffaw of "told you so."

Now the stories are starting to come out about the long-term effects.  After the break is a link to a story about major cuts in medical research.

Hurricane forecasting and other difficult jobs

It should surprise no one that forecasting the number of hurricanes in a season is a difficult task.  The report (after the break) illustrates the challenges and the costs associated with inevitable forecasting errors.  I will also discuss the implications of this for EBPM.

Scale and Emergency Management

 For those who have been tracking the current wildfires near Yosemite (known as the Rim Fire), I wanted to point out that there are interesting management challenges that go along with the drama of the wildfire.  As the report (linked below) points out, there are currently 5000 fire fighters working to put out the fire.  This operation will serve as a test of the scalability of management techniques.  It is worth considering whether management advice that works with dozens of employees will scale to problems like this that include thousands of employees (under a great deal of pressure, with limited communication abilities, in a remote environment).  This is some of what interests me so much in the management of disasters.

What is evidence-based public management?

It seems natural to start with a description of evidence-based public management.  For a fuller treatment, check out my textbook (Public Administration Research Methods from Routledge).  The basic argument is that decision in public management should be driven by careful data analysis rather than instinct, habit, and political expediency.

Hello and welcome to my newest blog -- Evidence-based Public Management.  I will be using this blog to comment on and link to stories related to evidence-based public management (EBPM).  If you are interested in EBPM, you will find stories detailing the use of EBPM as well as commentary on where the approach is clearly needed.  There will likely be a strong emergency management component -- largely because I do a lot of reading in that area.

For more technical information on academic research in EBPM, checkout my research blog at www.researchinpm.blogspot.com.  There you will find information like my recent working papers, methods tutorials, and commentary on academic research.

You can also follow me @Robinson_OU.  There I will link to various items of interest across the research and teaching/outreach topics on the two blogs.

Check in soon for more.  I expect to update each blog every two weeks -- if not more often -- with new material.