Elaine Kamarck
Lecturer in Public Policy
September 2009
Primary Politics: How Presidential Candidates Have Shaped the Modern Nominating System
Book
By Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy
In Primary Politics, political insider Elaine Kamarck explains how the presidential nomination process became the often baffling system we have today. Her focus is the largely untold story of how presidential candidates since the early 1970s have sought to alter the rules in their favor and how their failures and successes have led to even more change. She describes how candidates have sought to manipulate the sequencing of primaries to their advantage and how Iowa and New Hampshire came to dominate the system. She analyzes the rules that are used to translate votes into delegates, paying special attention to the Democrats' twenty-year fight over proportional representation.
May 2007
The End of Government . . . As We Know It: Making Public Policy Work
Book
By Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy
In the last decades of the twentieth century, many political leaders declared that government was, in the words of Ronald Reagan, "the problem, not the solution." But on closer inspection, argues Elaine Kamarck, the revolt against government was and is a revolt against bureaucracy—a revolt that has taken place in first world, developing, and avowedly communist countries alike.
To some, this looks like the end of government. Kamarck, however, counters that what we are seeing is the replacement of the traditional bureaucratic approach with new models more in keeping with the information age economy.
June, 2002
Governance.com: Democracy in the Information Age
Book
By Joseph S. Nye, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy
Fall 2006
"The Gathering Storm"
Journal Article, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, issue 2
By Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy
One year after Katrina, what if it’s not just once in a lifetime? Making sense of our disaster-prone future.
Assessing Howard Dean's Fifty State Strategy and the Midterm Elections
Journal Article, The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics, issue 3, volume 4
By Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy
AP Photo
Spring 2011
"Three Fights We Can Win"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, issue 20
By Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy
Mammoth, "comprehensive" change is so murky and fraught with uncertainty that the public is predisposed to turn against it. It's difficult for a member of Congress to walk into a town-hall meeting and persuade people that there really aren't death panels in the health-care bill while brandishing a 1,000-page monstrosity in front of skeptical voters. Complexity breeds suspicion in a country where 40 percent of the population is ideologically opposed to government, and 70 to 80 percent at any given time in recent history don't trust it.
AP Photo
Spring 2009
"Reinventing Reform"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas
By Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Reforming government is a difficult and thankless task. Political leaders find that reform is almost always unpopular in the short term because it disrupts existing power arrangements. And if they manage to produce reforms that bear lasting and positive results in the long run, they are often out of power by the time the reforms bear fruit. I should know—I’ve been there."
June 2006
"Give "Competence" Another Try: This Time it Might Work"
Magazine or Newspaper Article, The Democratic Strategist, (A Journal of Public Opinion & Political Strategy)
By Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy
"In the 1988 presidential election, Michael Dukakis was pilloried — rightly — for running a soulless campaign whose message consisted of the phrase, “It’s not about ideology, it’s about competence.” But times change. That was before the Federal Government’s response to Hurricane Katrina so overwhelmed us with its incompetence that America was humiliated before the world. The response to Katrina, however, was only the most dramatic in a long series of government failures, from the planning of the war in Iraq, to the failure of the occupation, to the design of the Medicare prescription drug policy...."
Kent Dayton
Summer 2008
"Super-Delegates Q&A with Elaine Kamarck"
Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter
By Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy
With the current attention on the role of super-delegates in the selection of a Democratic candidate for president, we asked Elaine Kamarck, Kennedy School lecturer in public policy, if we might reprint a portion of her doctoral dissertation on the history of super-delegates. Her dissertation, "Structure as Strategy: Presidential Nominating Politics Since Reform,” was submitted to the political science department of the University of California, Berkeley in 1986. The following is extracted from the original. Kamarck will serve as a super-delegate at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
January 22, 2012
"Reflections on President Obama's Inaugural Address, His Second Term and Presidential Leadership Style"
Op-Ed
By Elaine Kamarck, Lecturer in Public Policy
"But the President's speech was light on the economic problem meaning that his biggest challenge will be to not repeat the mistakes of the first term by underestimating the pain and suffering of the recession. He can't assume that just because we're moving in the right direction, attention can be turned to other issues—worthy as they may be."
