Recent News

In the latest contribution to the Democracy Papers, Kay Schlozman, Henry Brady, and Sidney Verba give an authoritative overview of inequalities of political voice in the United States. Drawing on their recently published book, Unequal and Unrepresented: Political Inequality and the People’s Voice in the New Gilded Age, they show that not only has American political life long been dominated by inequalities of political voice, but also that these inequalities have been further accentuated by the…

As global temperatures rise because of climate change, suicide rates are likely to rise as well, according to a new analysis by Stanford University and UC Berkeley researchers. The study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, concluded that projected temperature increases over the next few decades could lead to an additional 21,000 suicides in the United States and Mexico by 2050. That’s an increase of several percentage points over rates today, which are actually rising as other…

College students and young adults are more anxious now than ever before. A new study launched by the Berkeley Institute for the Future of Young Americans (BIFYA) at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy aims to find out why and what -- from a public policy standpoint -- can be done about it. According to a policy brief from BIFYA, 32% of 13- to 17-year olds have “met criteria for an anxiety disorder at least one point…

A discussion about Japanese healthcare.  A ride on a bullet train.  A conversation with a Hiroshima survivor.  And more. The student-led Goldman School trip to Japan gave participants the unique opportunity to compare and contrast policy approaches while enjoying the sights, sounds, and tastes of Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Himeji. The trip was organized and led by Naoyuki Komada, a first-year MPP student from Japan, and was funded by the generous support of the Goldman School community,…

Clockwise from top left: Betsy Baum Block, Corey Newhouse, Justine Wolitzer, Jamie Allison.   It started with shopping for hats. Betsy Block (MPP ‘06) first met Jamie Allison the week before the start of classes for their first year at GSPP. They bonded as they shopped for hats along Telegraph Avenue. Later, Betsy met Corey Newhouse (MPP ‘03) at a gathering for new students that Corey hosted with Debra Solomon (MPP ‘03) and others. Betsy and Jamie went on to…

By Charlotte Hill (MPP ‘17) It seems poetic that the antithesis of Washington, DC’s political corruption and ineptitude can be found in Washington State, 2,493 miles away. Maybe the physical distance between the two jurisdictions helps Washington State’s legislators resist politics as usual. Maybe the shared name imbues them with an outsize sense of responsibility over the nation’s political system — a desire to fix our broken democracy and get government right. Whatever the reason,…

Good morning everyone. I want to start by thanking you, my peers, not only for selecting me to be your commencement speaker, but for giving me the opportunity to do one more 32-hour project, because after submitting my APA at 1:30 in the morning on Friday, I definitely thought to myself, "yeah I could do another thing." But in all seriousness, it truly is a great honor. And I would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to the friends and…

by Dan Lindheim, Faculty Director for the Center on Civility & Democratic Engagement and  Assistant Professor of Practice On March 20, a public conversation took place on campus between Goldman Professor Robert B. Reich and Heritage foundation economist Stephen Moore, an economic advisor to President Donald Trump. Moderated by Dean Henry E. Brady, this was the first in a series of “conversations across the divide,”an initiative of Chancellor Carol Christ as part of her efforts to promote…

This is an edited excerpt from remarks by Dean Henry Brady on Monday, May 14, at the graduation ceremonies for the Goldman School of Public Policy Public policy analysis deals with the hard problems faced in the public and non-profit sectors where we must bring political values to bear in the most effective way to solve difficult public problems. In the process, we are often confronted with difficult moral dilemmas. Let me give an example. As with every year, and as…

Gene Bardach’s classic Eight Fold Path tells us that doing policy analysis requires eight steps:  identifying problems, assessing their severity, constructing alternative approaches, evaluating them, projecting likely outcomes, confronting tradeoffs, deciding, and telling a story.   Some academics focus on the first four or five of these steps, and never confront tradeoffs, decide, and tell a story that leads to policy changes.   GSPP’s faculty excel at these first steps, but they also…