PolicyGuy

Thursday, May 31, 2007


The Brezhnev Doctrine Applied to Local Government.
Once a week or so, I am going through my list of drafts. Some are so old that they have been overtaken by events. Others would require some work to complete a thought.

A few drafts--and this was one of them--are nothing but a title. Unfortunately, I no longer have any idea what I had in mind when I wrote the "The Brezhnev Doctrine Applied to Local Government." After all, that was nearly two years ago.

It probably had something to do with the unfortunate practice of cities and other local governments going into business in competition with the private sector. The Brezhnev twist would be that once a city assumes ownership of a golf course, elaborate water park, or some other venture, it is unlikely to relinquish it.

But I could be wrong. So dear readers--all two of you--have a little fun with this and think about how the Brezhnev Doctrine might apply to local governnment.

"Justice Louis D. Brandeis'?s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments ... had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. .... To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics." -- Michael S. Greve

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