Crisis and Innovation: Let the Bad Times Roll

For its first several years, the Harvard Kennedy School program to celebrate public-sector breakthroughs was called Innovations in State and Local Government. In the mid-1990s eligibility was opened to federal applicants, though without any expectation that hidebound Washington would generate much in the way of innovation. But federal entries actually won a big share of the awards in subsequent years. Like just about everybody else, I was surprised by this, and decided to explore what was going on. With the help of a team of research assistants, I produced a book called Making Government Work that profiled the story behind each of the 14 programs that won Innovations in American Government awards in the first five years of federal eligibility.