After a day of exercising muscles out on the ropes course, the SPS 2011 class got its first chance to exercise those intellectual muscles (all formidable, of course!) in our first case study of the 2011 SPS session.
The "case method" of teaching is familiar to graduate students in fields such as law, business, and public policy. A "teaching case" is written in narrative-style, and describes a specific situation or conflict (perhaps a complicated policy decision for a government official) with the goal of, as Harvard's Kennedy School of Government states, "put[ting] students in the shoes of real-life decision-makers in order to prepare them for their own lives of decision-making." Instructors act as facilitators of discussions with an eye toward helping the students identify the problem, analyze the causes, and formulate solutions.
Our first case of the session is a Harvard Kennedy School of Government case, "Ethical Problems in Public Careers: Lying." The case presents the reader with a series of vignettes, or "mini-cases," some fictional and others drawn from real-life situations, that all focus in on one particular issue: whether it is ever ethical or "right" for a government official to be dishonest in the quest of a greater good. Some of the scenarios? A reporter lies to his confidential source to persuade the source that the reporter is already aware of secret information and just needs confirmation; a mayoral candidate does not tell the press, when asked, that he plans to make cut-backs on popular city programs if elected; a Speaker of the House misleads his colleagues to break a deadlock and get a crucial appropriations bill through Congress. The vignettes are designed to present students with dilemmas that require nuanced thought and discussion, and highlight some of the common excuses or rationalizations for a lack of candor in public life: "that's how the game is played"; "I'm just doing my job"; and "it's for a good cause." (The word is that all three of the sections had lively and animated discussions -- see the photo slideshow in the post above for evidence!)
