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One of the questions on my recent public management exam asked students to resolve the logistical conflicts between the G-20 Summit, scheduled for June 26-27 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, and baseball games between the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies at the Rogers Centre next door. The Phillies’ pitcher at one of those games would almost certainly be the Jays’ former ace Roy Halladay, in his first and only return appearance this season.

The question assumed that the federal, provincial, and municipal governments wanted to reconcile tight security for the summit with the personal freedom of baseball fans, and so the games would go ahead. As we learned earlier this week, the Blue Jays management concluded that those concerns were irreconcilable, and so the games will be played in Philadelphia instead.

Consider, first, the exam question. What would a logistical plan for holding the games at Rogers Centre have involved? Here are the elements I was looking for. First, restrictions on automobile access and parking near the stadium. Second, access to the games primarily by public transit from Union Station and St. Andrew’s, with clearly designated walkways to the game, likely avoiding Front Street. Third, strong military and police presence in the vicinity. Fourth, baggage and body searches of fans closely resembling the practice at airports. Fifth, very clear and repeated communication with fans so they know what to expect and prepare themselves accordingly.

As this wasn’t the outcome, let’s consider the decision to move the games. Whose decision was it? We don’t know how much prior consultation there was between Blue Jays management and any of the three levels of government, in particular the feds, but it was Blue Jays management that announced the decision. My strong suspicion is that, whatever their role in the decision, the government didn’t want to announce it themselves. For government, it’s a bad news story, and they are happy to let the team take the heat.

Life imitates art. In preparation for my book on narratives and public management, I have recently been watching back episodes of The West Wing. One of the episodes I watched yesterday, “The Women of Qumar” involved a series of decisions that represented defeats for the Bartlet Administration. The communications strategy involved announcing them all in a short period of time, with the announcements to be made, not by White House spokesperson C.J. Cregg, but by a number of departmental spokesmen at departmental offices rather than at the White House. Conclusion: distance yourself from the bad news.

But can government, particularly the Harper Government, distance itself from this particular item bad news? Governments want to host G-20 summits to showcase some aspect of their society. But does downtown Toronto really need to be showcased? It’s probably the most high profile urban venue in the country.

The Harper Government has a GTA problem, and would like to win some Toronto seats to contribute to a parliamentary majority. Perhaps the decision to host the summit in Toronto (rather than Muskoka, as had originally been planned) was an attempt to raise Toronto’s profile in the world and thus the government’s profile in Toronto.

But the G-20 summit is turning out to be a logistical disaster, as more and more aspects of normal urban life and personal freedom are being restricted on a weekend at the start of the summer. The residents of Toronto are being asked to turn over downtown to visiting politicians (who will only be visible on our television screens), the global media, and a massive military and police presence. Will this make the skeptical citizens of Toronto more likely to vote Conservative? I think not.

C.P. Snow, in Strangers and Brothers, his series of eleven novels about life in academe, business, and government, often referred to “closed politics.” By this he meant decisions made on the basis of confidential consultations among politicians and public servants and announced as a fait accompli.

There is, of course, another side to political life. In a democracy, politicians must take into account public opinion and must ultimately submit to the will of the electorate, which Snow refers to as “open politics.”

In the exam in my graduate narratives course, I asked students to discuss how the following politicians practiced and conceived of the relationship between open and closed politics: Richard Nixon, Jack Kennedy, Charlie Wilson, and the fictional Jim Hacker. Here’s what I was looking for.

Richard Nixon was, more than any other, a practitioner of closed politics. He was an introvert who preferred to spend as much of his time as possible alone in the Oval Office. He once referred to it as his State Department. His famous opening to China, negotiated in secret by Henry Kissinger, was an example par excellance of closed politics.

Nixon didn’t like campaigning and didn’t think he was effective at it. The White House plumbers and their dirty tricks, including the Watergate break-in, were an example of closed politics of the worst kind – illegal – intended to achieve an objective in open politics, namely ensuring that the Democrats would nominate the weakest possible candidate. The tricks were initially successfully, but when they and the cover-up were exposed, he paid the ultimate political price.

Jack Kennedy, as illustrated by his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, liked both closed and open politics, was skilled in the use of both, and knew when to call on each to achieve his desired result. He set up the top-secret Excom for advice during the crisis but relied on the inner Excom – Bobby Kennedy, Ted Sorensen, Robert McNamara, and McGeorge Bundy – for support for his final deal with the Soviets. That deal was made in secret by Bobby Kennedy and Russian Ambassador Dobrynin and Jack Kennedy demanded it be kept secret.

At the same time, it was important to him that the Administration’s position was presented in as clear and compelling a way to the public as possible, at both the United Nations and the Organization of American States. Kennedy presented his case to the American public after the initial naval quarantine was implemented, and he was able to prevent the New York Times from publishing the story in advance. Part of Kennedy’s ease in combining both forms of politics was his skill as an orator, displayed, for example, in his famous Berlin Wall Speech.

Charlie Wilson was effective at both open and closed politics but the two were disjoint. He was always popular in his constituency due to his personal charisma, and no less to his ability to deliver the earmarks they wanted. In his closed politics, he pursued the cause that became his passion, winning CIA support for the Afghan Mujahadeen in their resistance to the Soviets. The cause was necessarily covert and not of much moment to his constituents. But he moved easily in both the worlds of East Texas constituency politics and CIA operations and back channel deals in Pakistan and the Middle East. Winning re-election was essential to providing the status necessary to play “the great game,” but his playing the game in no way contributed to his life in constituency politics.

Finally, Yes Minister. The television series was structured entirely around back-room deals among politicians and public servants, and the viewer never sees crowds or voters. This was in part a function of the BBC’s production format and the constraint that it be produced in studio before a live audience. But the politicians are certainly aware of the voters, and winning election or re-election is a prime motivator. In the episode we watching in call (“The Smokescreen”), Prime Minister Hacker is pursuing a tax cut that he thinks will be tremendously popular with the voters, the Health Minister undertakes a public campaign to pass anti-smoking legislation, which the Minister of Fitness and Sport opposes because it will put marginal seats such as his own at risk. But the deal that resolves the conflict is cut in private.

The conclusion. A really great politician is effective at both, understands the importance of open politics for legitimacy and validation, knows how to do what has to be done in private and how to sell it to the public.

As the UK election approaches, with the prospect of no clear majority, let’s think a bit about what happens on May 7. Unaccustomed to such situations, people in the UK refer to it as a hung Parliament, a term that suggests political immobility. Canadians, who have had considerable such experience at the federal level refer to it as a minority government, a term that suggests getting on with the job of governing, regardless of whether the party in power has a majority in the House of Commons.

In my recent public management exam, I asked students to speculate about possible political alignments at Westminster as well as what the UK Civil Service should be doing to prepare for the different scenarios. The latter I put in terms of UK Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell consulting Canadian Cabinet Secretary Wayne Wouters.

Regarding political alignments, the issue seems to be how close either Labour or the Conservatives comes to a majority and which of the smaller parties either can convince to support it.

Will the Liberal Democrats play the role of unique king-maker, in that they alone with Labour or the Conservatives constitute a majority? This appears to be what the commentators I have read are suggesting. If this is the case, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has to choose between a tired party and discredited leader with which it has greater ideological affinity or a rejuvenated party with a fresh leader but a strange ideological bedfellowship.

There might be another possibility, however, which is that either Labour or the Conservatives could get close enough to a majority that the support of one or more of the smaller parties (Scottish Nationalist, Welsh Nationalist, etc.) would be sufficient. Then the question would be whether either the Conservatives or Labour could offer these parties enough (for example increased devolution for the Scottish and/or Welsh Nationalists) to get their support.

If these scenarios start to play out, we will see an interruption to the British tradition of a 24-hour transition of power. Gordon Brown may be remaining in Ten Downing albeit with his bags packed as intense discussions go on among the parties as to which coalition can constitute a majority.

Like Canadian Governors General, the Queen, for the first time in her long monarchy, may actually have to make a decision with political ramifications. Thinking back in British history, the most recent precedent I can recall was King George VI’s momentous decision in May 1940, taken after considerable consultation, to call upon Winston Churchill rather than Lord Halifax to succeed Neville Chamberlain.

What should the UK Civil Service be doing now? First and foremost, it should be analyzing in great detail the platform of every party, so that it is in a position to effectively assist whatever coalition takes power after the election. So for example, it should be anticipating policies of a Conservative minority government supported by the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists, not just the policies of Labour supported by the Liberal Democrats or the Conservatives supported by the Liberal Democrats.

Looking back to Canadian precedent, the most unprepared public service I can think of was the Ontario public service in 1990, which thought it most unlikely the NDP would be elected with a majority, and so did not fully prepare for that eventuality. Let’s hope that Sir Gus and his colleagues do a better job and are ready for all the permutations and combinations of coalitions that could emerge next Friday morning. That will be the real test of their professionalism.

First, an explanation for my silence for most of the month. One week I was in Cambridge, MA for the end of the week (when I normally post), and I have also been busy preparing and grading exams, doing my annual reports for the university, writing a grant application, and revising a paper for resubmission. My desk is a bit cleaner now, and I will be back to posting more regularly now, including some posts about the final exams in my courses.

But today’s post is about something completely different. On this trip to Cambridge I stayed into the weekend and my wife joined me, and we had a chance to visit the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Realizing that we will be in Boston again with the children later in the year and also realizing that an annual membership is less expensive than two visits, we took out a membership.

Beyond all the things we saw on the visit – particularly a superb special Egyptian history exhibit “The Secrets of Tomb 10A” – getting the membership gave me the feeling of joining a cultural community in a city that is not my home, but one I frequently visit.

And this takes me to the deeper question of why we travel. For me, the key reason is to understand the history and culture of other places. My main attractions are museums, art galleries, and religious shrines. In the Eighties and Nineties, when I travelled frequently, especially in Asia, I wrote quite a few travel pieces for the Globe and Mail, about things like Kabuki theatre, Chinese and Japanese gardens, and religious shrines.

To my profound regret, the travel pages have increasingly become dominated by foodie travelers, who travel primarily to visit a handful of upscale restaurants. And while local cuisine is a part of local culture, and for that reason deserves some attention, many foodie travel articles display little locavore interest, and simply go for the places with the Michelin stars.

I read an egregious example of this in the New York Times on Sunday April 25. In the “36 hours” feature, correspondent Jaime Gross was in Kyoto, a place so significant to Japanese culture that, during World War II, it was the only major city the Americans did not bomb.

She began by noting that Kyoto has 2000 ancient temples and shrines, and then suggested twelve activities. Four were in some sense cultural (the Geisha district, a well-known park, a museum devoted to the tea ceremony, and a comic book (manga) museum. Five were restaurants, two bars or clubs, and the twelfth was shopping. Clearly, none of the 2000 temples or shrines nor the famous Nijo Castle appealed to her.

On two visits to Kyoto, each a weekend, I rented a bike, and cycled from shrines to gardens to castles, treating the meals as refueling stops. I couldn’t imagine a more fascinating way to spend a day – anywhere.

There are two terms, both of biblical origin, I would apply to Ms. Gross’s notion of travel, at least as displayed in this article: philistine and Am Ha-aretz. The latter is a Hebrew phrase from rabbinic Judaism, literally “people of the land,” connoting people who are rustic, uncivilized, and ignorant.

The challenge of the “36 hours” concept is to accept the time constraint and make choices. That article displayed unwise and uncivilized choices. In its essence, foodie travel is about indulging the senses and ignoring the mind. A bad choice, and not my choice.

In my graduate narratives course, our narrative-of-the-week feature has frequently looked at how journalists incorporate narratives at the start of their articles to capture the reader’s attention. This is an alternative to the standard inverted pyramid model that involves summarizing the entire story in the first paragraph. My guess is that roughly 80 percent of articles use the inverted pyramid model but 20 percent employ the narrative approach.

This week’s narrative of the week – an article in the New York Times about Barack Obama’s arms control negotiations with the Russians – dovetailed perfectly with the theme of the class – the Cuban Missile Crisis as portrayed in the movie Thirteen Days.

Peter Baker’s article, entitled “Twists and Turns on Way to Arms Pact with Russia” appeared in the New York Times on Saturday, March 27. A narrative about the four month long process of negotiation began with its most dramatic episode, an impasse that so angered President Obama that he was willing to walk away without a deal.

In its second paragraph, the article directly quoted Obama’s words, “Dmitri, we agreed. We can’t do this. If it means we’re going to walk away from this treaty and not get it done, so be it. But we’re not going down this path.” It’s rare to see a President’s exact words in a confidential negotiation quoted, and I think it’s a certainty that the unnamed advisers who provided his words were those at the highest level: Rahm Emanuel and/or David Axelrod. What was the point they were trying to make?

Even though the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union was dissolved two decades ago, Russia maintains its nuclear arsenal and many Americans still remember living under the specter of nuclear war.

Thus, one of the criteria by which Americans measure the mettle of a president is whether he has the strength to stand up to the Russians. Baker’s article draws on that expectation, contrasting President Obama’s resolve to “forge a new relationship with Russia, starting with a treaty to slash nuclear arsenals” with the observation that “for a year Russia had been testing him, suspecting he was weak and certain it could roll over him.”

Obama’s advisers wanted to tell the inside story of the negotiation process to demonstrate that he wasn’t weak and that the Russians didn’t roll over him. The phone call quoted at the start of the article was one instance. The article also mentioned that, despite his focus on health care reform, Obama found the time to closely supervise these negotiations. As proof, it added that he had 14 telephone calls or meetings with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

This demonstration of presidential engagement was likely intended to forestall the political right’s long-standing criticism of Democratic presidents as being soft on communism. But perhaps the world has changed somewhat. The Times ran the story on page 4 in the news section, rather than beginning it on the front page. And the right seems to have ignored this arms control agreement, continuing to focus its attacks on health insurance.

Finally, the article had one historical echo that some readers may have caught. In the classic satire Doctor Strangelove, the Russian Premier with whom the American President Merkin Muffley has a telephone conversation was named Dmitri. In that case, the fictional President was trying to coax his inebriated Russian counterpart to respond to the threat of American bombers carrying nuclear weapons turned loose by a rogue air base commander. When reading the article, I couldn’t help but hear comedian Peter Sellers voice, who played the American president, intoning “Dmitri, we have a little problem.”

Indeed the world has greatly changed since the mid-Sixties, but the presidential narrative of firmness towards the Russians still remains deeply embedded in the American psyche. And President Obama, and his advisers, were trying to demonstrate that his actions were consistent with that narrative