Columns on the Epidemic of Academic Fraud in the Social Sciences

 Erik Devereux is a columnist for the online edition of the PA Times, a publication of the American Society for Public Administration.

Erik authored a six-part series on the epidemic of academic fraud and dishonesty in the social sciences that is impacting the field of public administration and public policy. The series began in October 2023 and concluded in March 2024.

Here are links to his columns:

• "Part 1: Symptoms of a Cataclysm" (10/27/2023)
• "Part 2: The Collapse of the Academic Career" (11/20/2023)
• "Part 3: The Subversion of Peer Review" (12/18/2023)
• "Part 4: Reforming Doctoral Education" (1/26/2024)
• "Part 5: Restoring the Sanctity of Basic Research" (2/23/2024)
• "Part 6: Rewarding the Content Creators" (3/22/2024)

Columns on Punishing Corporations that Commit Child Abuse and Neglect

Erik Devereux is a columnist for the online edition of the PA Times, a publication of the American Society for Public Administration.

Erik authored a six-part series on punishing corporations (rather than people) for committing child abuse and neglect. This series argues that governments should give out the corporate death penalty in these cases, shutting down the organizations, seizing their assets, and compensating victims.

Here are links to his columns:

• "Part 1 - Confronting the Problem" (4/28/2023)
• "Part 2 - If Corporations Are 'People' Can We Deter Them from Evil?" (5/26/2023)
• "Part 3 - Reinforcing the Separation of Church and State" (6/22/2023)
• "Part 4 - A Tale of Two Movies" (7/28/2023)
• "Part 5 - Like Slavery and Prostitution, Child Labor Never Goes Out of Style" (8/25/2023)
• "Part 6 - Protecting Children on the Public Stage" (9/29/2023)

 

Columns on Fixing the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex

Erik Devereux is a columnist for the online edition of the PA Times, a publication of the American Society for Public Administration.

Erik has taught the course, "Nuclear Weapons Technology," in the Georgetown University Security Studies Program since the spring of 2018. A "radical pragmatist" by trade as a scientist, Erik supports fixing the Nuclear Weapons Complex out of recognition that the creation of nuclear weapons shut down the Great Powers wars that would have decimated billions of lives if allowed to occur after World War Two. As it stands, the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex is suffering from decades of deferred maintenance, mission drift, and loss of capacity. The result may be the first nuclear power to disarm through incompetence brought about by the overall, unwarranted attacks on the federal government that have characterized American politics since 1980.

Here are links to his columns:

• "Part 1 - Unintended Consequences of Decades of Federal Government Budget Failures" (5/20/2022)
• "Part 2 - Making Peace with Nuclear Weapons" (6/17/2022)
• "Part 3 - The Problem Starts with the Pits" (7/15/2022)
• "Part 4 - All Roads Lead to PANTEX" (8/19/2022)
• "Part 5 - Y-12 at a Crossroads" (9/16/2022)
• "Part 6 - The Savannah River Solution" (10/21/2022)

Columns about Responding to Climate Change

Erik Devereux is a columnist for the online edition of the PA Times, a publication of the American Society for Public Administration. 

Erik has published several columns related to the challenges posed by climate change including a four-part series that touches on many themes other experts now are exploring in much greater detail. Another series specifically discusses how the misplaced emphasis on recycling plastic is undermining efforts to address climate change.

Here are links to his columns:

• "It's Time for Project Earth" (10/11/2016)

Four-Part Series of Columns on a Pragmatic Approach to Climate Change

• "Part 1 - Choose a Fact-Based Strategy" (8/26/2021)
• "Part 2 - Solve the Governance Problem" (9/22/2021)
• "Part 3 - Demand Gross Carbon Reductions Every Year" (10/20/2021)
• "Part 4 - Invest in Rebuilding the Electricity Infrastructure" (12/19/2021)

Five-Part Series on Plastic Recycling vs Climate Change

• "Part 1 - A Road Paved with Good Intentions" (11/18/2022)
• "Part 2 - Worshiping False Idols" (12/16/2022)
• "Part 3 - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" (1/23/2023)
• "Part 4 - Seduced by Greenwashing" (2/24/2023)
• "Part 5 - Pragmatic About Plastics" (3/24/2023)

Columns on Public Administration in "Post-Democracy" America

Erik Devereux is a columnist for the online edition of the PA Times, a publication of the American Society for Public Administration. 

Reacting to the legacy of the first Trump Administration, Erik wrote a series of columns connected to how the U.S. administrative state might persevere and seek to prevail against the rising tide of authoritarianism.

Here are links to his columns:

• "Part 1 – Implications of the Collapse of Consent" (1/19/2022)
• "Part 2 - Knowing Good from Evil" (2/18/2022)
• "Part 3 - What Becomes of the 'Deep State'?" (3/17/2022)
• "Part 4 - Can a Simple Fix Prevent Authoritarianism?" (4/18/2022)

Columns on Public Policy Professional Education

Erik Devereux is a columnist for the online edition of the PA Times, a publication of the American Society for Public Administration. 

Erik has a longstanding involvement with professional graduate education in public policy that began when he joined the faculty of the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University in 1991 while completing his University of Texas PhD in Government. Erik eventually served as the program director the flagship professional degree at the Heinz School (1995-1998) before he left to be the executive director of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in Washington, DC (1999-2010). Subsequently, Erik taught public policy analysis for the Carnegie Mellon DC program, the American University School of Public Affairs, and the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy. Erik is the author of policy analysis textbook available in PDF for free download here.

Through his three decades of experience in public policy education, Erik became critical of the drift in the focus of U.S. public policy schools. Four columns on this topic are available through these links:

• "For United States Schools of Public Policy, Is It Good Enough to Keep Muddling Through?" (2/4/2020)
• "Do United States Schools of Public Policy Have the Discipline to Grow a Discipline?" (4/28/2020)
• "United States Schools of Public Policy Should Operate as Professional Schools Rather than as Pseudo Think Tanks" (8/2/2020)
  
• "What Do You Do with a Degree Title Like MPP (or Worse)?" (11/5/2020)

Columns About Race Inequality and Social Justice

Erik Devereux is a columnist for the online edition of the PA Times, a publication of the American Society for Public Administration.

Erik wrote a series of four columns about strategies for addressing racial inequality and achieving social justice in the U.S. These columns in large part were inspired by his service for 22 months as the Interim Director of Research and Evaluation at the Center for Urban Families on the west side of Baltimore, Maryland.

• "Directly Addressing Racial Equity and Justice Is the Only Way to a Better Future for the United States" (1/30/2019)


• "The First Step Toward Restorative Justice for Native Americans and African Americans Is an Official Apology" (5/2/2019)


• "The Second Step Toward Restorative Justice for Native Americans and African Americans Is Community Engagement" (8/1/2019)


• "Restorative Justice For Native Americans Necessarily Comes Back to the Land" (10/28/2019)