Do You Have to Be Innovative to Study Innovation?

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2010.02321.x
• Author: Allan Wallis
• Date: 01 January 2011
• Published date: 01 January 2011

138 Public Administration Review • January | February 2011

followed, with its impulse to devolve government

from the federal to the state and local levels. But

were these levels of government up to the task? Susan

Beresford, then vice president of the Ford Founda-

tion’s domestic programs, thought it was important

to demonstrate that state and local governments were

capable of being both innovative and responsive to

the new demands being placed on them. In 1984,

the Ford Foundation and Harvard University’s John

Sanford Borins, ed., Innovations in Government:

Research, Recognition, and Replication (Washing-

ton, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008). 231 pp.

$26.95 (paper), ISBN: 9780815713777.

In his f‌i rst inaugural address, Ronald Reagan

famously opined, “In the present crisis gov-

ernment is not the solution to our problem.

Government is the problem.”  e new federalism

Do You Have to Be Innovative to Study Innovation?

Allan Wallis

University of Colorado Denver

Allan Wallis is an associate professor of

public policy in the School of Public Affairs

at the University of Colorado Denver and

director of the school’s Center for Local

Government.

E-mail: allan.wallis@ucdenver.edu