Book Review Essay: 9/11 and the Challenges of Public Management: The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States

Although as of this writing at the beginning of 2006, there has been no significant new act of terrorism in the U.S. since September 11, 2001, the risk of an attack on a major city with weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, or biological) remains terrifying. One might even see the danger that Western countries face now as greater than during the bleakest years of the Cold War. Then, there was the unimaginable risk of a holocaust that might end life on earth, but it was hard to imagine this would come about by other than ghastly error, while now there is probably no risk of extinction, but there are those who wish consciously to unleash mass destruction. Many sober observers (e.g., Allison, 2004) believe it is very possible that an entire city might be annihilated by a terrorist nuclear blast.

[1]  P. Schoemaker,et al.  Scanning the periphery. , 2005, Harvard business review.

[2]  Thomas H. Hammond.  Why Is the Intelligence Community So Difficult to Redesign? Smart Practices, Conflicting Goals, and the Creation of Purpose‐Based Organizations , 2007 .

[3]  Charles R. Schwenk.  LINKING COGNITIVE, ORGANIZATIONAL AND POLITICAL FACTORS IN EXPLAINING STRATEGIC CHANGE , 1989 .

[4]  E. Savas,et al.  Privatizing the public sector : how to shrink government , 1982 .

[5]  M. Tushman,et al.  Ambidextrous Organizations: Managing Evolutionary and Revolutionary Change , 1996 .

[6]  A. D. Nicholl,et al.  Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision , 1963 .

[7]  Steve Chan,et al.  The Intelligence of Stupidity: Understanding Failures in Strategic Warning , 1979, American Political Science Review.

[8]  Christopher Pollitt,et al.  Unleashing Change: A Study of Organizational Renewal in Government , 2006 .

[9]  M. Crenson,et al.  The Un-Politics of Air Pollution: A Study of Non-Decisionmaking in the Cities , 1972 .

[10]  Robert Haveman,et al.  Benefit-Cost and Policy Analysis: 1973. , 1976 .

[11]  Baruch Fischhoff,et al.  Judgment under uncertainty: For those condemned to study the past: Heuristics and biases in hindsight , 1982 .

[12]  Wendy K. Smith,et al.  Managing Strategic Contradictions: A Top Management Model for Managing Innovation Streams , 2005 .

[13]  M. Tushman,et al.  Technological Discontinuities and Organizational Environments , 1986 .

[14]  Surprise Attack , 1952, Archives of disease in childhood.

[15]  Gene V. Glass,et al.  Politics, Markets, and America's Schools , 1990 .

[16]  M. Hannan,et al.  The Population Ecology of Organizations , 1977, American Journal of Sociology.

[17]  Karl E. Weick,et al.  Organizing and Failures of Imagination , 2005 .

[18]  J. Dutton,et al.  Categorizing Strategic Issues: Links to Organizational Action , 1987 .

[19]  Amy Zegart.  September 11 and the Adaptation Failure of U.S. Intelligence Agencies , 2005, International Security.

[20]  J. Wolfers,et al.  Prediction Markets , 2003 .

[21]  M. Bazerman.  Judgment in Managerial Decision Making , 1990 .

[22]  Alexander L. George,et al.  The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign Policy , 1972, American Political Science Review.

[23]  A. Edmondson.  Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams , 1999 .

[24]  S. Kelman.  Unleashing Change: A Study of Organizational Renewal in Government , 2005 .

[25]  JEFFREY R. COOPER.  Curing Analytic Pathologies: Pathways to Improved Intelligence Analysis , 2005 .

[26]  C. Gilbert.  Unbundling the Structure of Inertia: Resource Versus Routine Rigidity , 2005 .

[27]  M. Rogers,et al.  Control in an Age of Empowerment , 1995 .

[28]  J. Rivera.  The psychological dimension of foreign policy , 1970 .

[29]  Kathleen M. Sutcliffe,et al.  Information Handling Challenges in Complex Systems , 2005 .

[30]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[31]  Canice Prendergast.  The Provision of Incentives in Firms , 1999 .

[32]  The New Public Service , 1999 .

[33]  Marlys K. Christianson,et al.  Managing the unexpected , 2001 .

[34]  R. K. Betts,et al.  Analysis, War, and Decision: Why Intelligence Failures Are Inevitable , 1978, World Politics.

[35]  Graham Allison,et al.  Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe , 2004 .

[36]  Michal Handel.  The Yom Kippur War and the Inevitability of Surprise , 1977 .

[37]  John W. Kingdon.  Agendas, alternatives, and public policies , 1984 .

[38]  James D. Thompson.  Organizations in Action , 1967 .

[39]  D. Leonard-Barton.  CORE CAPABILITIES AND CORE RIGIDITIES: A PARADOX IN MANAGING NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT , 1992 .

[40]  Charles F. Parker,et al.  Bolt from the Blue or Avoidable Failure? Revisiting September 11 and the Origins of Strategic Surprise , 2005 .

[41]  Avi Shlaim.  Failures in National Intelligence Estimates: The Case of the Yom Kippur War , 1976 .