Richard Gelles, "The Third Lie: Why Government Programs Don't Work"

Penn IUR celebrated the release of Faculty Fellow Richard Gelles’s book “The Third Lie: Why Government Programs Don’t Work - and a Blueprint for Change.” Gelles demonstrates how the bureaucratic structure set up by many agencies effectively hinder the programs from accomplishing their own goal of serving the populations they were created to benefit. However, some common elements do exist in the few programs that have proven effective over the years. Commentators included David Thornburgh, Executive Director, Fels Institute of Government; and Laura Wolf-Powers, Assistant Professor of City & Regional Planning, School of Design. Lynn Hollen Lees, Professor of History, co-Director of the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies and Vice Provost for Faculty, moderated the discussion.