Is it Time for a New Paradigm?

Some are calling it the new wave in conservative thought. Others are saying there is nothing new about it. As the rhetoric rages, The New Paradigm certainly has the Kennedy School talking...

When top White House aide James Pinkerton first outlined the five principles of a "New Paradigm" last February, many dismissed the idea as mere rhetoric, an excuse for the administration's weak domestic policy.

But now the concept has caught on in Washington, forcing policy analysts, including scholars at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, to take a closer look at what some are dubbing the new wave in conservative thought.

Many Republicans say their social agenda will bring about a new era of "empowerment," in which a less bureaucratic government will use market-based solutions to allow the poor to take control of their own lives.

But many political scholars at the Kennedy School remain skeptical that the Republican paradigm alone will alleviate poverty in America. While most embrace the ideals of free choice and empowerment, many say that the government must back up these goals with financial support.

"These concepts are terrific--if you have the money to do it," says Richard E. Cavanaugh, executive dean of the school and a former senior administrator in President Carter's Office of Management and Budget. "The New Paradigm folks are hoping for a cheap way out of an expensive problem."

"I think the rhetoric surrounding it is very much appealing," Professor of Public Policy David T. Ellwood says. "But there's an awful lot of buzzword."

But Steven D. Pierce, a former gubernatorial candidate who is leading a study group on the New Paradigm at the Institute of Politics (IOP), told students at last week's group discussion that his 12 years as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives have shown him that politicians too often measure accomplishment in terms of how much money is spent on a problem rather than the actual results achieved.

Pierce, who currently serves as the secretary of the Executive Office of Communities and Development in the Weld Administration, told students that the New Paradigm offers an alternative to the traditional bureaucratic system of government. Instead, the New Paradigm contains five principles--free market orientation, choice, empowerment of the poor, decentralization and emphasis on what works--that Republicans assert will make the government both less expensive and more effective.

But although these principles and the three programs most associated with the so-called New Paradigm--enterprise zones, school vouchers and private ownership of public housing--have been billed as a new Republican approach to social policy, many question whether they are new and whether they are necessarily Republican.

"What's interesting is that these ideas are not new. What's new is the word 'New Paradigm,'" comments Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning William C. Apgar, Jr., noting that the Reagan administration had embraced the themes of empowerment and that the idea of the sale of public housing has been around for almost a decade.

Cavanaugh agrees that these ideals of empowerment have been floating around for quite some time: Nixon termed it the "New Federalism," and Reagan called it the "New American Revolution."

In fact, Cavanaugh points out that, far from being exclusively Republican ideals, "choice" and empowerment were favorite themes of Robert F. Kennedy

Pierce agrees that the New Paradigm need not be an exclusively Republican concept. "If the New Paradigm is a successful model for governing in the 1990s and into the next century, the Democrats will embrace many of its concepts," says Pierce, who noted that a Wisconsin Democrat, Polly Williams, had originally suggested educational vouchers in her state.

Enterprise zones are one example of how government can help poor areas as unobtrusively as possible, according to Pierce. Under this plan, government would promote economic development in poor areas by, for example, offering property tax breaks to lure companies into areas with high unemployment and high rates of poverty.

This idea, which has been advocated nationally by Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp, has been tried fairly successfully in 30 states since 1980, Pierce says. In fact, Massachusetts is the only one of the 10 largest industrial states which does not have an enterprise zone program, according to Pierce, who tried unsuccessfully to initiate such a program when he was in the state legislature.

Schools of Choice

A second New Paradigm program would replace mandatory school assignments with educational vouchers. The introduction of "choice" into the school system would mean schools would compete for students, forcing bad schools to improve if they want to remain in business, according to Pierce.

"It makes teachers, principals and, to some degree, students work harder," Pierce said.

While Cavanaugh agrees that the idea of less monopoly in government is a good one, he argues that the school voucher system would require gradual, rather than sudden, implemetation and provisions for children with special needs.

Housing

Finally, a New Paradigm agenda would include selling public housing to tenants in order to decrease the government's involvement and encourage tenant responsibility. This sort of plan, New Paradigm supporters say, would empower the poor by forcing tenants to take a greater responsibility for their own lives.

"People react differently when they are told and shown that they have a power over their own lives," Pierce said.

IOP fellow Claudine Schneider, a former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, agrees that private ownership can have many positive effects on the lives of tenants.

"Where I've seen it work, for instance in Chicago, it's been extremely empowering," Schneider said. "The tenants learn management skills. They learn how to make a budget. They develop an entrepreneurial sense that they may not have had the chance to develop before."

But many experts on housing at the Kennedy School express strong reservations about the ability of the government to implement such a program. Apgar, who is the associate director of Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, says private ownership, while useful in some respects, would not ultimately solve all the problems faced by public housing tenants.

"There's no magic about home ownership that makes an unskilled worker into a skilled one," says Apgar. "Proving people with a home doesn't provide them with skills."

Cavanaugh agrees that private ownership of public housing would not address many serious underlying problems such as jobs, education, and family background.

"All of these problems are interrelated," Cavanaugh says. "You can't just solve one and say 'I fixed it.'"

Furthermore, both Apgar and Cavanaugh say that the terrible condition of most public housing and the low incomes of public housing tenants complicate the problem.

"The fact that they own it isn't going to give them the money to put in a new bathroom," Cavanaugh says, noting that a substantial subsidy would be required to make the program work effectively.

Apgar agrees that, although private ownership might have positive effects on the tenants, the government must back up these ideals with solid financial support.

"The controversy is not so much whether we should have tenants more involved in the running of their lives," Apgar says. "The question is what kind of supports are necessary to make this work."

Ellwood, a Kennedy School labor economist who specializes in the study of poverty, agrees that New Paradigm strategies are seriously limited in their ability to aid the poor.

Ellwood notes that strategies such as tenant management and enterprise zones are generally aimed at very urban areas. His research indicates, however, that only seven to 10 percent of poor Americans live in city ghettos.

Ellwood also notes that the New Paradigm does not address two of the most important poverty issues: the impoverished situation of single-parent families and the dilemma of people who work full time and still remain below the poverty line.

"Unless we find solutions to these problems, we are basically putting them in the position where there's not much they can be empowered to do," Ellwood says. "My real fear is that the administration will make this their entire poverty program and not deal with these other major problems."

Apparently, Ellwood is not alone in this concern. Many scholars--even liberal ones--do praise the philosophy of decentralization underlying the New Paradigm. But others say the New Paradigm is a poor excuse for a comprehensive domestic policy.

"Republicans have felt philosophically for a long time that state and local governments should take on the onus of all these problems because they're closer to the people," Cavanaugh said. But Cavanaugh argues once again that state and local governments do not have the financial resources to deal with these problems alone.

But Schneider says that, even though these programs are not new per se, the articulation of a New Paradigm has sparked a newly-revived interest in existing programs.

"What we need to do may be exactly what the Bush administration is doing--repackage these programs and go out and sell them," Schneider said.

Actual Effects?

But while the New Paradigm continues to be all the rage in Washington D.C., it remains to be seen exactly what effect the idea will have on research at the Kennedy School.

Some, like Ellwood, say that when it comes to K-School research, the New Paradigm is nothing new.

"I think the idea of empowerment underlies all that we do," Ellwood says. "We're not looking for welfare-based solutions. We're looking for ways to help people help themselves."

"It's evolving," admits Pierce. "It isn't an ideology fully developed in the academic world or in the political world. It's a concept that will take years to fully implement and understand and work with."

And analysts agree that, although the idea may not be that new, the New Paradigm, with its wave of publicity, will continue to provide the political world with food for thought.

"I think it's a value assessment whose time has come," says Schneider. "Our goal as a government ought to be to empower every individual, particularly the poor, who may need extra help."