Governing under Stress

After a plethora of studies of the impact of the Obama stimulus on the national economy, here at last is an insightful analysis of what happened in the states. The authors have made an invaluable contribution to our understanding of our federal system under stress. -- Alice M. Rivlin, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Founding Director of the Congressional Budget Office

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was an intervention of historic proportions in the US economy during the Great Recession. What lessons for the future can we learn from this massive federal program? In this book, scholars from public administration and public policy analyze the fraught politics and complex implementation of ARRA.The underappreciated but surprisingly successful implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) helped rescue the economy during the Great Recession and represented one of the most important achievements of the Obama presidency. It tested all levels of government with urgent time frames and extensive accountability requirements. While ARRA passed most tests with comparatively little mismanagement or fraud, negative public and media perceptions of the initiative deprived the president of political credit. Drawing on more than two hundred interviews and nationwide field research, Governing under Stress examines a range of ARRA stimulus programs to analyze the fraught politics, complex implementation, and impact of the legislation. Essays from public administration scholars use ARRA to study how to implement large federal programs in our modern era of indirect, networked governance. Throughout, the contributors present potent insights into the most pressing challenges facing public policy and management, and they uncover important lessons about policy instruments and networks, the effects of transparency and accountability, and the successes and failures of different types of government intervention.