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What does it take to make the policymaking A list?
Posted By Daniel W. Drezner
Monday, December 1, 2008 - 2:59 PM
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If you are bright and are contemplating a potential career in American politics, you go to a top law school--not a public policy school. This does not seem to have changed much in recent decades despite everything [Harvard's Kennedy School of Government] has done to make itself visible and relevant.While I'm glad that the Fletcher School can claim at least one cabinet appointment, Rodrik raises an interesting question -- why do law school grads get the foreign policy jobs coveted by public policy school grads? I can think of a couple of reasons. The first is really simple -- if you're going to be writing laws, it helps to be a lawyer. The second reason is simple path dependence. The original gangsters of the foreign policy community were lawyers. The best way to get a top policymaking job is to made your mark by serving as a loyal deputy to past top policymakers. Since people are more likely to hire their own, it's not surprising that lawyers would hire other lawyers. The second reason is signaling. Follow this logic:
- A top policymaking job requires three key attributes: leadership, discipline, and policy expertise
- Policy expertise can be earned from various sources -- a public policy degree is one avenue, but hardly the only one
- A public policy degree, on the other hand, is much more fun to earn than a law degree. Which means it requires less discipline.
- By getting a law degree, aspirants to top policymaking jobs are signaling to observers that they can grind their way through a serious amount of drudgery.
- Ergo, lawyers with significant policymaking experience are more likely to have the discipline necessary to be good at their jobs.
Of the first 15 cabinet and White House appointments announced by president-elect Barack Obama... three earned degrees from the nondescript buildings off the Strand that house the London School of Economics. The selections of Peter Orszag as budget director and Pete Rouse and Mona Sutphen to the senior White House staff means the LSE only has two less graduates than Harvard in team Obama. LSE currently has one more than traditional American powerhouse universities Princeton (Michelle Obama’s alma mater); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Michigan Law School. Mighty Yale can boast only one graduate, Gregory Craig, the next presidential legal counsel, though Hillary Clinton and James Steinberg will triple the score if they end up at the state department.
A more likely and simpler explanation: way more people go to law school than public policy school.
Ezra asked this question a few days ago, and I left a similar comment there. I think that signalling discipline has a lot to do with it.
I graduated from Harvard Law School in June, and had several friends there who were enrolled in joint JD/MPP programs at the Kennedy School and a few more who cross-registered from K-school classes. The sentiment was unanimous that the Kennedy school classes weren't remotely rigorous. One friend called it the "Kindergarten School of Government" and took classes there as a Harvard undergrad to raise his GPA. Another derisively called the program "Kentucky Fried Grad School" and spent the year he was nominally enrolled there working for the John Edwards campaign out of state. He got straight A's.
So much of law school is hazing, it wouldn't surprise me at all if law school grads in government would be slow to hire MPPs.
I tend to agree with Trevor. I graduated from law school in May and afterwards enrolled in a multidisciplinary human rights program at a highly regarded European university. The difference in rigor and quality is like night and day. Getting a JD isn't that hard, but you have to at least put in some effort.
European financial policy now is more LSE-educated. At the recent financial crisis summit, French President Nicholas Sarkozy announced that the Europeans got "virtually everything" they sought. With the new balance of power coming out of the financial crisis, it will help the U.S. to have leaders well versed in the thought processes of their now more powerful counterparts in Europe.
There is a bizarre notion in government that lawyers are qualified for just about anything in the cabinet or in administrative slots.
Beyond that, law firms provide havens for lawyers who dip in and out of public policy spots as administrations change, thus financing future insider connections for the lawyers.
It is often not about what you know, it is about who you know and what favors are owed.
Economists are similarly overrated.
Timothy Geithner the new Treasury Secretary, has a masters in international relations from Johns Hopkins, not a law or econ degree. Although SAIS is an international policy rather than public policy school.
LSE4lyfe y'alL!!!!
Seriously, there are more Americans than Brits. LSE - "Let's See Europe!" Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Oxbridge!
Kennedy School grads in the top ranks of the Obama administration (so far):
Pete Rouse - MPA '77 Senior Adviser, former Obama Senate office chief-of-staff
Shane Donovan - MPA '86 (also M.Arch and A.B. from Harvard), Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Nancy Sutley - MPP '86, Director of White House Council on Environmental Quality
Also the COO of his campaign was Betsy Myers, MPA '00
In the outgoing Bush administration, senior-level HKS grads included:
Keith Hennessey MPP '94, Director of the National Economic Council (being replaced by Larry Summers)
Daniel Mudd MPP '86, was CEO of Fannie Mae
Andrew Card '80 (did not graduate), was chief-of-staff
Guys, sorry for off topic, but how hard it is (in terms of GRE, GPA and essays) to get into HKS? I would especially treasure responses from persons exposed, less or more, to HKS admission process. Thank you in advance
Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
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