Cases with Teaching Plans

Trash Collection in Lone Pine: To Privatize or Not?

Publication Date: January 01, 1991

This hypothetical case is a paradigm of the privatization decision facing many jurisdictions as they struggle with budget pressures. It tells the story of the town manager of a small Texas municipality who has reason to believe that, if she were...

St. Louis County Police Department

Publication Date: January 01, 1990

This case examines a specific technological innovation and tracks its effect on the procedures of an organization. The Computer Assisted Report Entry (CARE) system adopted by the St. Louis County Police Department is designed to replace what is...

The Regulation of Mud Flaps

Publication Date: January 01, 1990

When Congress calls for new regulations governing the size and effectiveness of truck mud flaps, small companies which had dominated the mud flap market suddenly find themselves in trouble. Failure to adapt their products to the new regulations...

The International Diamond Cartel: The Cartel and the Soviet Union (C)

Publication Date: January 01, 1989

How do bargaining and negotiation work among the partners of an international trade cartel? The international diamond cartel, established in 1888 and controlled by the South Africa-based DeBeers Corporation, faced a series of crises beginning in...

The Reagan Administration and Lebanon

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

When Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982, the United States became deeply involved: first by sending a special envoy to broker a withdrawal of PLO forces from Beirut (a withdrawal supervised in part by US marines); then by helping Christian...

The Indian Ocean Negotiations

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

In June 1977, US and Soviet negotiators met in Moscow for the first round of talks on arms control in the Indian Ocean. Over the preceding decade, the growing political importance of that area had led both nations to establish a limited naval...

The Reykjavik Summit: Watershed or Washout?

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

On October 11 and 12, 1986, at Reykjavik, Iceland, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan met for the second time. The issues they intended to address--nuclear arms reductions, the future relationship of...

Rhodesia Becomes Zimbabwe (B): The Lancaster House Conference

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

This is Part B of a two-case sequence. HKS Case 816.0 is Part A: In September of 1977, the US and Britain announced a joint proposal for bringing majority rule and independence to Rhodesia, whose white minority government had for years been...

Paying the Bills at the Junta of Andalusia

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

This case explores the ways in which a seemingly mundane, undramatic function--the way in which a government pays its bills--can be linked to basic public perceptions of governmental legitimacy and efficiency. The question of how to organize...

Fall of the Shah of Iran

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

In the first months of 1979, the Shah of Iran-on whom successive American administrations had relied as a pillar of strength in a strategic and turbulent region-fell from power. Less than a year earlier, no analyst, inside or outside government,...

Matters of Life and Death: Defunding Organ Transplants in the State of Arizona

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

This case draws on controversy triggered by a decision to direct medical care funds for the poor to mothers and young children--rather than expensive, life-saving organ transplant operations. In the wake of the death of Diana Brown, a...

Starting from Scratch: Alice Rivlin and the Congressional Budget Office (A)

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

When Alice Rivlin became the first director of the Congressional Budget Office in February 1975, she found herself in charge of a new agency with no staff, no permanent offices, a very sketchy mandate from Congress as to its duties and...