George Washington University to Host SOG Conference

May 22-24, 2003

Papers from the conference!

The Elliott School of International Affairs of George Washington University is proud to host the next SOG conference, Innovation, Institutions and Public Policy in a Global Context. The conference will be held at the University, located four blocks from the White House in Washington DC.

The conference is organized around the notion that policy is the product of imagination and circumstance. Much of what governments and organizations do is in reaction to changing conditions. The reasons are familiar: the world has shrunk dramatically in the last several decades. Reductions in trade barriers have led to not just more integrated markets, but also more integrated societies. What happens in one part of the world now easily affects other parts of the planet. In this shrinking, and interconnected environment, technology has been the hand-maiden of change, sometimes shaping a new environment, sometimes exaggerating influences from other sectors.

Institutions are sometimes created to initiate new policies, and sometimes the result of adaptations to changing circumstances. Viewed this way, institutions are both the tools and targets of change.

In this fluid environment, how do policy innovations occur? To what extent are policy makers adapting to new circumstances, or rather are they autonomously initiating policy? How are they constrained by organizations, public or private? Do the limits or potentials of technology play a role? In short: what factors facilitate policy change? How do we understand the process of innovation as it affects public policy, international or domestic?

Participants in the conference will be expected to address some or all of these questions, bringing to bear the latest empirical research to the problem. Because of limited budgetary resources, the Elliott School regrets that it is unable to ask for unsolicited papers.

Papers from the conference!