Lawrence M. Mead

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The Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service is home to research and policy centers, institutes, and initiatives that focus on solving urban problems and strengthening public policy and public service nationally and around the world.

The Financial Access Initiative (FAI) is a consortium of researchers at NYU, Yale, Harvard and IPA focused on finding answers to how financial sectors can better meet the needs of poor households.

Since its founding in 1994, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy has become the leading academic research center in New York City devoted to the public policy aspects of land use, real estate development and housing.

The Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS) is a research and education center founded in January 1998, located at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and directed by Professor Rae Zimmerman. ICIS promotes interdisciplinary approaches to planning, building, and managing the complex world of civil infrastructure systems to meet their social and environmental objectives.

A university-wide, multidisciplinary enterprise, the Institute for Education and Social Policy was founded by former Wagner Dean and NYU Executive Vice President Robert Berne, the Aaron Diamond Foundation's Norm Fruchter, and NYU Steinhardt School of Education Dean Ann Marcus. The Institute investigates urban education issues and studies the impact of public policy on students from poor, disadvantaged, urban communities.

New York University is proud to announce the establishment of the John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. The Center is named in honor of NYU President Emeritus and former Member of Congress, Dr. John Brademas.

The NYUAD Center for Global Public Service and Social Impact's mission is to advance international understanding and effective practice for strengthening the global public service as a driver of social impact in a constantly changing international environment. It is designed to support the entrepreneurial, effective and efficient production of public value by governments, nongovernmental organizations and private social ventures, by working through networks of scholars, opinion leaders and senior executives across the world.

Housed within the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, the Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA) creates collaborative learning environments that break down this isolation, foster needed connections and networks, and yield new and practical insights and strategies.

Established in 1996 at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and named in September 2000 in recognition of a generous gift from civic leader Lewis Rudin, the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management is currently led by Mitchell Moss.

The Mission
The purpose of the project is to create and convene an interdisciplinary network of thinkers and doers (the "Network") that could help with making the transition from closed-and-centralized to open-and-collaborative institutions of governance.

The Berman Jewish Policy Archive at NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service is a central address for Jewish communal and social policy, both on the web and in its home at NYU Wagner. Named for its principal funder, The Berman Foundation, BJPA's primary focus is on making the vast amount of policy-relevant material accessible and available to all those who seek it.

Global forces are dramatically changing the environments of children, youth and adults both in the United States and throughout the world. First- and second-generation immigrant children are on their way to becoming the majority of children in the U.S., bringing linguistic and cultural diversity to the institutions with which they come in contact.

NYU Wagner is affiliated with the Nathan Kline Institute, the National Hispanic Health Foundation, and the Transatlantic Policy Consortium.

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Ranked #6 in Public Affairs by U.S. News & World Report, the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service educates the future leaders of public, nonprofit, healthcare and private sector organizations addressing the world's critical issues.

Students who wish to take only a few courses at Wagner must apply as a non-degree student by the appropriate deadlines; however, non-degree and advanced certificate applicants are not eligible for scholarship consideration.

NYU Wagner offers more than 150 different courses, allowing students to select not only by degree and specialization within that degree, but also by topic area.

Capstone is learning in action. Part of the core curriculum of the MPA and MUP programs at NYU Wagner, the Capstone program combines critical learning with an opportunity to perform a public service.

The flexible and fluid world of public service requires a broad and transferable education. Housed in a school of public service, rather than a school of public policy or public affairs, the Master of Public Administration in Public and Nonprofit Management and Policy program at NYU Wagner educates professionals committed to public service in all sectors.

NYU Wagner's Health Policy and Management program has been recognized as one of the best in the country. Located in a school of public service rather than in a medical or public health school, our program crosses traditional boundaries, linking management, finance, and policy, and provides students with the cutting-edge concepts and skills needed to shape the future of health policy and management.

NYU Wagner's Master of Urban Planning program prepares students for the full set of challenges of today's cities, balancing development, community needs and social justice, provision of critical public services, sustainability and security.

Through theoretical and methodological training, Wagner's doctoral students learn how to produce insights required for effective and equitable public and nonprofit programs and policies.? Our program is interdisciplinary, flexible, and provides a wide range of academic opportunities for students.

With a powerful professional network and a flexible curriculum, the Executive MPA program helps mid-career professionals prepare for the highest levels of public service leadership.

NYU Wagner offers a number of dual degrees in conjunction with other NYU schools. Programming and academic resources can include exclusive speaker events, tailored orientations and designated faculty and administrative advisors.

The Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service offers a set of courses and minors open only to undergraduates. All of the courses are taught by Wagner School faculty who are recognized experts in their fields and provide students with an opportunity to explore some of the most important public policy issues facing policy-makers and practitioners at the local and national level today.

Students arrive at NYU with the desire to serve the public. They leave with the skills and experience to bring about change. Combining coursework in management, finance and policy with cutting-edge research and work experience in urban communities, the NYU Wagner education will enable you to transform your personal commitment into public leadership.

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Date	Publication/Paper
2011	Mead, Lawrence M. 2011. *Welfare Politics in Congress.* PS: Political Science & Politics. V. 44, no. 2 (April 2011): 345-56. View article Abstract The stakes of political conflict involve contending values and issue definitions as well as policy. Welfare reform was the most important change in American domestic policy since civil rights. Its significance hinges crucially on how participants understood the issue, but existing research fails to resolve what their perceptions were. Most accounts suggest that welfare reform was an ideological contest concerning the proper scope of government, but there are other views. This study gauges the welfare agenda rigorously by coding speakers in congressional hearings on the basis of how they framed the issue and the position they took on it during the six chief episodes of welfare reform that occurred between 1962 and 1996. The reform efforts aroused four distinct divisions. Over time, positions moved rightward, but more important, the dominant issue changed: The ideological debate about government was overtaken by a more practical debate about how to manage welfare. This is the first study to track the substantive meaning of any issue in Congress over an extended period of time using hearing witnesses and a preset analytic scheme.
	Mead, Lawrence M. 2011. *Expanding Work Programs for Poor Men.* AEI Press, 2011.
2010	Mead, Lawrence M. 2010. *Scholasticism in Political Science.* Perspectives on Politics. V. 8, no. 2 (June 2010): 453-64. View article Abstract Criticism of trends in political science centers on specific methodologies—quantitative methods or rational choice. However, the more worrisome development is scholasticism—a tendency for research to become overspecialized and ingrown. I define that trend more closely and document its growth through increases in numbers of journals, organized sections in the American Political Science Association, and divisions within the APSA conference. I also code articles published in the American Political Science Review to show a growth in scholastic features in recent decades. The changes affect all fields in political science. Scholasticism serves values of rigor. To restrain it will require reemphasizing relevance to real-world issues and audiences. To do this should also help restore morale among political scientists.
2004	Mead, Lawrence M. 2004. *Government Matters: Welfare Reform in Wisconsin.* Princeton University Press, 2004.
1997	Mead, Lawrence M. 1997. *The New Paternalism: Supervisory Approaches to Poverty.* Brookings Institution Press, 1997.
1992	Mead, Lawrence M. 1992. *The New Politics of Poverty: The Nonworking Poor in America.* Basic Books, 1992.
1986	Mead, Lawrence M. 1986. *Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship.* Free Press, 1986.

The stakes of political conflict involve contending values and issue definitions as well as policy. Welfare reform was the most important change in American domestic policy since civil rights. Its significance hinges crucially on how participants understood the issue, but existing research fails to resolve what their perceptions were. Most accounts suggest that welfare reform was an ideological contest concerning the proper scope of government, but there are other views. This study gauges the welfare agenda rigorously by coding speakers in congressional hearings on the basis of how they framed the issue and the position they took on it during the six chief episodes of welfare reform that occurred between 1962 and 1996. The reform efforts aroused four distinct divisions. Over time, positions moved rightward, but more important, the dominant issue changed: The ideological debate about government was overtaken by a more practical debate about how to manage welfare. This is the first study to track the substantive meaning of any issue in Congress over an extended period of time using hearing witnesses and a preset analytic scheme.

Criticism of trends in political science centers on specific methodologies—quantitative methods or rational choice. However, the more worrisome development is scholasticism—a tendency for research to become overspecialized and ingrown. I define that trend more closely and document its growth through increases in numbers of journals, organized sections in the American Political Science Association, and divisions within the APSA conference. I also code articles published in the American Political Science Review to show a growth in scholastic features in recent decades. The changes affect all fields in political science. Scholasticism serves values of rigor. To restrain it will require reemphasizing relevance to real-world issues and audiences. To do this should also help restore morale among political scientists.

Lawrence M. Mead
Professor of Politics and Public Policy

Contact Details

In the Press

Lawrence M. Mead

Lawrence M. Mead Professor of Politics and Public Policy

Contact Details

In the Press

Lawrence M. Mead
Professor of Politics and Public Policy