After election day, the victorious presidential candidate will need to fill thousands of key government positions. If you’re interested in working in a presidential administration, the newly-launched Ready to Serve website has all the information and guidance you need to navigate the complex process. With fewer than 90 days until the election, it’s not too early to get a head start.
Editor’s note: The following article first appeared on the Partnership for Public Service’s We the Partnership blog.
Federal employees cite many reasons for entering public service, including economic opportunity, the chance to do work they’re passionate about and job security. For many federal employees, however, one motivation stands above the rest: the desire to give back.
That was the theme that arose from a survey we sent in May, which received responses from 130 public servants at 45 federal agencies serving at all levels of government.
For Gary R., his upbringing inspired him to serve. His parents fled Germany after World War II to find new opportunities, and he wanted to give back to the country that gave them a fresh start. He served in the military but then headed to the private sector. However, federal service called to him once again, and he is now a curriculum manager at the Department of Homeland Security.
Elizabeth J. grew up with English as her second language but because she didn’t have access to ESL classes, she spent much of her time sitting silently at her classroom desk.
“I said if I ever got the chance to change this that I would,” Elizabeth wrote. She’s now in a position to do so. As an employee of the Department of Education, in the Office of English Language Acquisition, Elizabeth works to make learning easier for ESL students across the country.
The military is often a pathway to a lifetime of public service, which was the case for Sharon M. at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. She served in the military for six years and then in the Naval Reserves, while also running her own business. After 9/11, her sense of patriotism and desire to help soldiers in harm’s way led her to return to full-time public service.
“I serve because I want to make a difference, and I want to help the soldiers and sailors in harm’s way,” Sharon wrote. “I understand their situation; I was there.”
Other federal employees joined public service after working in the private sector because of the federal government’s mission. Kirtida P. from the Food and Drug Administration had a high-paying corporate job where she saw unsafe products being sold to hospitals and used by staff. She left to work for the federal government, making it her mission to protect the public from dangerous health products.
Kyle B. began work at the General Services Administration to support America’s 244-year-old legacy, which has made him feel like he is part of something greater than himself.
“A private company is only accountable to its shareholders and gets to pick its customers via what type of product or service it sells,” he wrote. “Public service does not get that luxury. Everyone is its customer. But this is why public service is so important to me; it matters.”
To share your own experience of working in federal government, including why you entered public service, take the #WhyIServe survey.
This post is by Jake Satisky, an intern on the Partnership’s Communications team.
The IBM Center for The Business of Government is pleased to announce a Challenge Grant competition to solicit essays describing how existing and emerging technologies will transform how government works and delivers services to the public in light of the impact of COVID-19. Topics to explore include:
Initial applications are due September 10, 2020.
In 1793, a young John Quincy Adams published a series of political essays under the pseudonym “Marcellus.” In these essays, he argued the fledgling United States should maintain neutrality in the war between France and Great Britain. President George Washington sought to uncover the identity of “Marcellus.” A year later, Washington appointed Adams U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands. Adams’ thought in these essays and elsewhere would have a lasting impact on U.S. foreign policy.
The John Quincy Adams Society has developed the Marcellus Policy Fellowship to help the next generation of U.S. foreign policy leaders follow in young JQA’s footsteps. By combining knowledge of foreign policy, the craft of effective policy writing, and the ability to publicize his ideas, Adams launched a career shaping U.S. statecraft. The Marcellus Policy Fellowship will do the same, helping our fellows develop the ideas and skills necessary to guide American foreign policy in the twenty-first century.
Over the course of several months, Marcellus Policy Fellows will wrestle with ideas that can animate a prudent foreign policy. They will hone their writing skills under expert guidance, crafting a detailed policy paper and a related policy memorandum and op-ed. All this will strengthen their candidacy for roles in an increasingly competitive foreign policy career space.
The Society will select 8-10 Fellows for our inaugural Fall 2020 cohort. The Fellowship is open to current students (graduate and undergraduate) as well as those with 0-1 year of employment in the foreign policy space. (Internships and paid internships do not count against the one year limit, nor does any amount of prior work in other fields.) The Fellowship is for those who are in, are pursuing, or intend to pursue in the near future a career shaping U.S. national security policy in fields like government service, the media, academia, think tanks, advocacy, and so forth. U.S. citizenship is not required.
Applications will be open through August 16, 2020. The Fellowship will run from September to November, with remote sessions up to twice per week (Tuesday and Thursday evenings) which Fellows must attend. Fellows will receive a $750 stipend. Apply at this link. If you have any questions, contact Ryan Nuckles via email.
Women are vastly underrepresented in leadership roles within the federal government, especially in the national security field. In this Transition Lab episode, Jamie Jones Miller and Nina Hachigian discuss their careers,how they handled uncomfortable situations and the importance of bringing more women into leadership positions.
Read highlights from the episode on the Center for Presidential Transition blog.
Congratulations to Treasury Department employees Corvelli McDaniel and Lorraine Cole for winning the 2020 Service to America Medals People’s Choice award.
The duo created an innovative mentoring program in which large U.S. commercial banks provide small and minority-owned banks with management and technical assistance to enhance their ability to serve low-income communities.
To learn more about their achievement, see the Service to America Medals profile on them.
RFG is a proud sponsor of the Service to America Medals (Sammies).
As the first academic scholar appointed to the Defense Business Board, Maxwell Dean David M. Van Slyke joins a select group of business executives appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Defense to help make the Department stronger and more efficient. From February – May 2020, Van Slyke was also part of a four-person task force engaged in a comprehensive study (pdf) of the management structure of the Department of Defense.
When asked about his appointment for this Q&A, Dean Van Slyke commented, “I’m inspired to serve the public good like so many Maxwell deans before me . . . As a professor of public administration, my goal is to educate and prepare public service leaders of the future who can manage people, programs, budgets, and data under conditions of uncertainty, complexity, and risk. My goal, and the goal of all those in and with a commitment to public service, is to develop the specialized skills and knowledge to help government run better and achieve its missions more effectively.”
Enhancing Public Governance: An Agenda for 2021 and Beyond
The public’s trust in government has been declining for decades. Restoring Americans’ trust in democratic government will be a long-term effort. This paper, and a companion piece, offer an agenda to help change the way we govern and engage as citizens. We see this as foundational to longer-term efforts to restore trust in government that has been frayed by performance failures and can, at times, itself become a barrier to effective governance.
In addition to the long-term trend of declining trust in government, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted near-term weaknesses in our governance structure to work collaboratively across agencies, levels of government, and sectors of society. The literature shows that collaboration is founded, in part, on trust.The pandemic’s exposure of this weakness gives us further reason to try to reimagine the way the federal government and its partners can jointly address large-scale challenges.
One way to restore public trust would be to develop new, more effective governance approaches to the biggest and most complex problems facing our country and society.
The Standing Panel on Social Equity in Governance of the National Academy of Public Administration has issued a statement regarding recent events and ongoing discussions regarding race, racism, and social equity. The statement, which can be found at the link below, is cosigned by 189 Academy Fellows, and other public administration professionals.
Editor’s note: The following piece was written by RFG Fellow Laura Leddy and originally published on the American Security Project’s website.
In January 2018, the Chinese government released its first Arctic policy white paper—which famously declared China a “near-Arctic state.” The American Security Project covered the white paper shortly thereafter, highlighting linkages between the proposed Polar Silk Road and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as well as Chinese commercial interest in shipping routes, oil and mineral resources, fisheries, and tourism. The question in the ensuing years has become whether China holds ulterior motives in seeking to exploit a rapidly shifting Arctic environment.
This question is difficult to answer, since economic and military activities are inherently intertwined—especially for a one-party, authoritarian state like China. The Chinese have every legal right to utilize Arctic waterways for commercial purposes, but these activities clearly possess security implications. China’s dual approach to expanding its Arctic presence requires a similarly nuanced American response: cooperation where possible and competition when necessary.
The Polar Silk Road exemplifies the extent to which Chinese commercial and security interests intersect in the Far North. A component of China’s Maritime Silk Road, the Polar Silk Road refers not to one specific waterway but to Chinese development of Arctic shipping lanes made increasingly accessible by climate change. One such passage is the Northern Sea Route above Siberia, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has opened to Chinese shipping (see map, below). This option cuts travel time between China and Europe by roughly a third compared with traditional routes through the Indian Ocean and Suez Canal.
Along with its economic benefits, however, the Polar Silk Road has clear security implications. The Polar Silk Road is embedded within Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious infrastructure project seeking to expand Chinese influence worldwide. There are concerns the “debt diplomacy” characterizing Chinese investments in parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America will move northward—weaving a web of diplomatic and economic commitments around Arctic states. Signs of pushback are already emerging, however, with recent Chinese land purchases in Greenland, Iceland, and Norway falling apart due to local resistance.
China’s prioritization of Arctic scientific research is further evidence of its dual presence in the Far North. By engaging in international research, such as the current MOSAiC expedition, China gains both legitimate access to Arctic waterways and technical knowledge of the region’s landscape. In geopolitics, knowledge equals power—a fact made clear by BeiDou, China’s answer to America’s Global Positioning System (GPS). The Department of Defense has also warned the Chinese Navy could exploit better understanding of the Arctic environment to deploy its next generation of nuclear submarines in the region. The U.S. should cautiously pursue collaboration with the Chinese on Arctic research while keeping in mind the dual nature of scientific discovery.
Western governments are increasingly concerned about the security implications of a Sino-Russian Arctic alliance. Energy collaboration is the cornerstone of this partnership: Chinese companies and government agencies invest in the Arctic activities of Russian oil and gas giants Rosneft, Gazprom, and Novatek. Novatek’s first icebreaking liquefied natural gas carrier recently completed a transport to China via the Northern Sea Route in 25 days—the earliest and fastest such eastbound voyage, and a harbinger of what will be possible as Arctic sea ice melt continues. The polar relationship between China and Russia is not currently a military one, but there are concerns that where Chinese ships go, submarines will follow.
Despite growing energy interdependence, however, Sino-Russian relations in the Far North are complex. Fiercely protective of its Arctic sovereignty, Russia was initially hesitant to grant China its Permanent Observer status on the Arctic Council. Similar concerns emerged on June 15, when Russia charged one of its Arctic scientists with treason for allegedly passing along information on submarine detection technologies to Chinese authorities. China’s desire for such information hints at long-term military ambitions in the Arctic. By cooperating with China (and Russia) where possible, however, the U.S. can exploit existing pressure points in the Sino-Russian strategic partnership—preventing energy collaboration from becoming military collaboration.
The military implications of China’s Arctic activities mean the U.S. must be prepared for renewed great power competition in the region. The current administration is beginning to recognize this, as evidenced by Trump’s June 9 memo calling for a new fleet of polar icebreakers. Rather than spend time and money arming these icebreakers, however, the U.S. should focus on a defensive posture emphasizing “technopolitics”: the interplay between technological achievement and geopolitical success. This would help preserve the Arctic as a zone of peace while promoting U.S. leadership in realms like domain awareness and scientific research.
To be a true Arctic leader, the U.S. must also present Scandinavian states with attractive alternatives to Chinese financing. Doing so necessitates sustained economic and diplomatic engagement. The June 10 reopening of the U.S. consulate in Nuuk, Greenland and a $12 million aid package to the territory are good starts, but more foreign direct investment and diplomatic interest will go a long way in promoting healthy economic competition with China.
It is important to recognize China’s legal right to utilize Arctic waterways. There is a clear irony, however, in China turning to international maritime agreements like the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in the Arctic while completely flouting them in the South China Sea. It is long past time for the U.S. to ratify UNCLOS. This will allow America to speak with legal authority on China’s hypocrisy and obtain leverage in Arctic affairs as climate change accelerates the scramble for offshore and seabed resources.
UNCLOS ratification would also help the U.S. hold China accountable to the current rules-based order in the Arctic. Despite the security implications of Chinese polar ambitions, there is room for China in this order—so long as it remains law-abiding. The U.S. should prepare to compete for its Arctic interests as needed, but it should also seek to cooperate with China in areas of joint concern. Potential avenues for collaboration include: sustainable development, fisheries management, and science diplomacy. Despite the dual-use nature of Arctic research, greater Sino-American scientific collaboration would reduce the likelihood of military conflict—and help unlock the secrets of a region in the throes of climate change.
