Politics

The Saga of Vera Katz

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

In November 1984, Representative Vera Katz decided to run for the position of speaker of the house of the Oregon Legislature. If elected, she stood to become the first female speaker in state history, and only the fifth American woman to preside...

Senator McGrail and the Death Penalty

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

This very short case, less than a page, is the story of a young Massachusetts state senator who is faced with a dilemma about how to vote on then-Governor Frank Sargent's veto of a bill restoring capital punishment. Senator McGrail is against...

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...

Rhodesia Becomes Zimbabwe (A): The US and the Internal Settlement

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

This is Part A of a two-case sequence. 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 embroiled in a civil war with...

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...

Extending the Red Line to Arlington (B)

Publication Date: January 01, 1987

Federal financing of state and local public works and development projects has made possible a wide array of improvements that otherwise might not have been made in US metropolitan areas. Yet these projects have left a mixed legacy in some...

Extending the Red Line to Arlington (A)

Publication Date: January 01, 1987

Federal financing of state and local public works and development projects has made possible a wide array of improvements that otherwise might not have been made in US metropolitan areas. Yet these projects have left a mixed legacy in some...

Jerusalem Steel Corporation

Publication Date: January 01, 1987

This hypothetical case is set in the spring of 1988, in the midst of the downturn of the Reagan administration's once-booming economy. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Roger Auchincloss is preparing for a meeting with Edgar Bowser, CEO of...

Rural Reform in Centropico (B)

Publication Date: January 01, 1987

This case illustrates the opportunities and difficulties posed in envisioning a strategy to enact and implement land reform policy in the complex political environment of a developing country. Professor Donna Lawrence, an American expert on...

Rural Reform in Centropico (A)

Publication Date: January 01, 1987

This case illustrates the opportunities and difficulties posed in envisioning a strategy to enact and implement land reform policy in the complex political environment of a developing country. Professor Donna Lawrence, an American expert on...

Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards

Publication Date: January 01, 1986

In March 1985, Ford and General Motors asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to reduce federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards from 27.5 miles per gallon to 26 mpg for the 1986 model year. For the first time...

General Motors and the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards

Publication Date: January 01, 1986

In 1984, General Motors Corporation was headed for a potentially expensive collision with federal corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards. GM had exceeded the steadily increasing standards in the program's early years, when high gasoline...