Focus Areas
The United States is in the middle of a profound transformation in the way public responsibility is conceived. Centralized, federal, and public institutions are being dismantled, their responsibilities diffused to states, localities, non-profits, public-private partnerships, and private-sector ventures. This devolution of responsibility is likely to mark as significant a change in the relationship among citizens, government, and the market as this century's earlier steps in the opposite direction, toward a more active central government.
For the same reasons that the Program on Governance and Public Policy's work on political process reform has centered on the states, the initiative believes that devolution holds some promise as a way to bring government closer to the people served and to resolve critical public questions that dissolve into gridlock at the federal level. There is also a great need for policy groups, community organizations, and other public advocates that can make the most of that promise and help states avoid the worst outcomes, especially for vulnerable populations.
The program first confronted the risks and the promise of devolution in 1997 through the prism of welfare reform, with a $2 million grant through three national organizations to build coalitions in states that could safeguard the needs of poor children. These coalitions, which have generated creative thinking about job creation, access to jobs, education, and children's needs, deserve significant credit for many of the successes of welfare reform.
Devolution is not limited to welfare funding, and as responsibility for housing, nutrition, health and other human needs shifts away from Washington, and as states confront their own policy dilemmas about education, tax policy, unemployment insurance, criminal justice, and other public responsibilities, OSI sees a need for supportive organizations that are not limited to a single issue, but can help shape new policy options as new crises arise. Through this initiative, the Program on Governance and Public Policy has supported a number of national networks that work through states or directly support state groups that are working to build the infrastructure in states that will ensure that devolution lives up to its best potential, as well as organizations that are focused on the transformations in particular areas of public responsibility.
