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How to Be a Policy Entrepreneur in the American Vetocracy - Institute for Progress

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To paraphrase economist Robert Solow, once you start thinking about state capacity, it’s hard to think about anything else. Or, at least, that’s been the case for Jennifer Pahlka, the founder of Code for America, a deputy CTO during the Obama administration, and the au­thor of Recoding America, a scintillating new book about how government services are actually implemented. Pahlka’s camp of policy wonks (of which I am a member) is broadly concerned with improving state capacity, the ability of the government to accomplish its policy goals. Pahlka is most interested in what happens when policies get implemented, and how kludgy government services can be delivered more effectively. Recoding America focuses on the many cases where policymakers unknowingly undermine their own objectives when they ignore how policy implementers actually turn legislative text into government-services reality. Pahlka’s book lays out a tremendous framework for policy entrepreneurs—individuals inside or outside

Content Case studies on the importance of policy implementation Implementation is necessary but not sufficient The super-trifecta problem Adversarial legalism Federalism Policy is upstream of implementation This article originally appeared in American Affairs Volume VII, Number 4 (Winter 2023): 20–28. To paraphrase economist Robert Lucas, once you start thinking about state capacity, it’s hard to think about anything else. Or, at least, that’s been the case for Jennifer Pahlka, the founder of Code for America, a deputy CTO during the Obama administration, and the au­thor of Recoding America ,

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