International Cases at KSG Increase by 46 Percent for Academic Year

Almost half of all new case studies added to the Kennedy School of Government's case collection this year will be "international" cases, set outside the United States, says Case Program Director Howard Husock.

There had been a dearth of international cases, despite the fact that the School has long attracted students from around the world. Only nine non-U.S. cases were published between 1975 and 1985, for example.

But all that is changing. Since the 1990s the trend has reversed dramatically and of the new cases for this academic year, 46 percent are international.

Husock credits three major initiatives at the School for the increase. New, unrestricted, internal funds -- not tied to any specific grant or research project Ñ have, for the first time, been invested in new case development, allowing the Case Program to respond to non-U.S. case requests.

Secondly, a wide variety of new Kennedy School executive programs involving non-U.S. participants have produced cases as offshoots. These include last fall's Ukraine national security program, which led to cases about the denuclearization of the Ukraine and the peacekeeping issue in Moldova; January's privatization program for the Interamerican Development Bank, which led to cases about deregulation of electric utilities in Brazil and telecommunications in Peru; last year's executive training for The Nature Conservancy, which led to cases about nonprofit management in Peru and Bolivia; and the upcoming program for senior officials in Hong Kong.

Finally, cooperative agreements with public policy programs outside the U.S. have led to jointly-developed new cases. This has been particularly true of the working relationship with the University of the Witswatersrand in Johannesburg, which has worked with the Kennedy School to develop cases about neighborhood change in Johannesburg and the constitutional and ethnic issues posed by so-called customary or tribal courts in South Africa. The latter are both examples of "new media" cases, as well; both are housed on World Wide Web sites and incorporate video.

"I am delighted to see that the School's curriculum is reflecting the priority which our students and I place on issues and experiences from countries around the world," observes Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr. "No good policymaker can afford to be parochial today. Our new curricular materials will help prepare our graduates for the increasingly interdependent sort of governance which is being practiced today."

The Kennedy School Case Program is the world's largest producer/distributor of cases (KSG cases are used at more than 500 other colleges and universities around the world), the new cases will influence curricula well beyond the walls of the Kennedy School alone. Descriptions of all new cases are available on the Case Program Web site: www.ksg.harvard.edu/caseweb