Daniel Gitterman, Ph.D.
Duncan MacRae ’09 and Rebecca Kyle MacRae Professor of Public Policy, College of Arts and Sciences | UNC-Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC, UNITED STATES
Dan Gitterman is the Duncan MacRae ’09 and Rebecca Kyle MacRae Professor of Public Policy.
Media
Publications:
Documents:
Videos:
Audio/Podcasts:
Biography
Daniel Gitterman is the Duncan MacRae ’09 and Rebecca Kyle MacRae Professor of Public Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill. He also serves as Director of the Honors Seminar in Public Policy and Global Affairs (Washington, DC) and Interim Director of EPIC. At Carolina, he has received fellowships from the Institute of Arts and Humanities (Academic Leadership Program; Chairs Leadership Program) and the Global Research Institute (inaugural program Globalization, the Economic Crisis and the Future of North Carolina). He has received the Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and the John L. Sanders Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and Service at Carolina. Gitterman’s research interests include: the American Presidency and public policy; education and labor markets; American welfare state and politics of social and health policy, and globalization and labor standards.
His latest edited volume, The Intersector: How the Public, Nonprofit, and Private Sectors Can Address America’s Challenges, explores how cross-sector collaboration can solve seemingly intractable societal problems by reviewing the state of cross-sector collaborations, identifying emerging practices, and offering a range of perspectives from experts in the field.
His book, Calling the Shots: The President, Executive Orders, and Public Policy, examines how Presidents and their staffs use specific tools, including executive orders and memoranda to agency heads, as instruments of political control of and influence over the government and the private sector. For more than a century, they have used these tools without violating the separation of powers.
His first book, Boosting Paychecks: The Politics of Supporting America’s Working Poor, also published by Brookings Institution Press, examines the role of federal income tax and minimum wage in supporting low income working families in the United States. He is co-author/editor (with Peter A. Coclanis) of A Way Forward: Building a Globally Competitive South, published by the Global Research Institute and distributed as an e-book by UNC Press.
Professor Gitterman received a B.A. from Connecticut College, an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and an A.M. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Brown University. Gitterman was an Exchange Scholar at the Harvard University Ph.D. program in Health Policy and completed a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at Berkeley.
Areas of Expertise (10)
Public Policy and Practice
Domestic Policy
Social Policy
Globalization
Political Economy
Minimum Wage Policies
Low-Income & Excluded Populations
Economic Development
Health Policy
The Presidency
Accomplishments (3)
Order of the Long Leaf Pine (professional)
2013-01-01
Bestowed by the Governor to North Carolina citizens in recognition of a proven record of service to the state.
John L. Sanders Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (professional)
2008-01-01
Awarded by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Tanner Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (professional)
2004-01-01
Awarded by The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Education (3)
Brown University: M.A., Ph.D., Political Science
University of Pennsylvania: M.A., Sociology
Connecticut College: B.A., Sociology, American Politics
Links (2)
Media Appearances (10)
Trump’s executive orders are signed with fanfare — but they deliver little punch
Washington Post online
2017-04-28
“Political scientists would probably have predicted that Trump would need to rely less on executive orders because he has full control of government,” said Daniel Gitterman, a professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “He doesn’t really have a working coalition in Congress.”
Obama, Trump, and White House Ethics
The Brookings Institution online
When it comes to ethics, modern presidents are often beset by their own conflict of interest. On the one hand they want to assure federal employees are only serving the public interest. On the other hand, presidents must display loyalty to their political appointees. This has become an especially fraught issue since Watergate, as public demands for integrity have become loud at the same time as the scope and complexity of federal government has made experts with private sector experience more attractive to government — and conversely, high-wage private sector jobs have become more attractive to political appointees leaving government service.
The Power of Executive Orders
Wisconsin Public Radio radio
2017-03-08
Throughout history, executive orders have been used by U.S. presidents to legally create policy while bypassing Congress. We find out how powerful a tool they can be, what limits there are on them, and whether the current administration's use of them is out of the ordinary.
The President’s Use Of Executive Orders
Kera Think online
2017-02-06
President Trump has wasted no time making good on campaign promises through the use of executive orders. It’s a strategy President Obama also employed in his first few weeks in office. Daniel Gitterman, chair of the University of North Carolina Department of Public Policy, joins us to talk about how presidents use executive orders. He writes about the topic in a database that details where members of Congress side on the ban.
Federal Judge in Los Angeles has issued restraining order on Muslim ban
Daily Kos online
2017-02-01
"The usual thing is that the executive order gets modified in some way or amended, maybe," said Daniel Gitterman, author of "Calling the Shots: The President, Executive Orders, and Public Policy." "The additional caveat from White House legal counsel on how to interpret that is unusual. There's not a huge record of those types of things." "My interpretation is [Trump] certainly did not want to admit he was wrong in any way and that, rather than go and vacate or amend the initial order, they decided to have counsel make a clarifying explanation," added Gitterman, a fellow in public policy at the University of North Carolina.
White House tweaks Trump's travel ban to exempt green card holders
Politico online
2017-02-01
"The usual thing is that the executive order gets modified in some way or amended, maybe," said Daniel Gitterman, author of "Calling the Shots: The President, Executive Orders, and Public Policy." "The additional caveat from White House legal counsel on how to interpret that is unusual. There's not a huge record of those types of things." "My interpretation is [Trump] certainly did not want to admit he was wrong in any way and that, rather than go and vacate or amend the initial order, they decided to have counsel make a clarifying explanation," added Gitterman, a professor in public policy at the University of North Carolina.
How a President Can Use Orders and Memos and Who Can Stop Them
ABC News online
2017-01-30
"You'll see that in any of the executive orders that Trump issues, there's going to be some phrase right in the beginning that cites either constitutional or statutory authority delegated from Congress," said Daniel Gitterman, a public policy professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author of "Calling the Shots: The President, Executive Orders and Public Policy."
On Trump's Use of Executive Orders
Brookings Institution online
Daniel Gitterman, Thomas Willis Lambeth Distinguished Chair in Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of the new Brookings book Calling the Shots, examines Trump’s use of executive orders and the implications of his unconventional strategy.
Through executive orders, Obama tests power as purchaser-in-chief
USA Today
2015-10-11
"Federal procurement is a powerful weapon by which American presidents attempt to expand their power and shape public policy in areas in which Congress has not acted or will not act," argues Daniel Gitterman, a professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ...
Gitterman awarded Order of Long Leaf Pine
UNC College of Arts and Sciences online
2013-02-27
Daniel Gitterman, associate professor of public policy in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, one of the state’s highest honors. University of North Carolina President Tom Ross, a recipient of the award in 1999, presented the award to Gitterman Feb. 27 on behalf of former Gov. Beverly Perdue in a ceremony at the Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence in Graham Memorial. The Order of the Long Leaf Pine was created in the mid-1960s and is given to North Carolina citizens in recognition of a proven record of service to the state.
Articles (5)
Can ‘Some College’ Help Reduce Future Earnings Inequality?”
Peabody Journal of Education
2015-11-04
This article addresses the policy debate over “college for all” versus “college for some” in the United States and analyzes the relationship between “some college” (as a formal education attainment category) and earnings. Our evidence confirms—using data from the American Community Survey (ACS), the Panel Study on Income Dynamics (PSID), and the Survey on Income and Program Participation (SIPP)—that more (postsecondary) education, on average, is associated with higher median earnings. However, there is emerging evidence that a proportion of workers who have attained lower levels of education (i.e., “some college”) earn more than those who have attained higher levels of education (bachelor's degree).
The American Presidency and the Power of the Purchaser
Presidential Studies Quarterly
2013 As the CEO of the administrative state, the president has the procurement power to dictate the terms and conditions on which the federal government will do business with the private sector. By way of delegated statutory authority, executive order, and agency procurement and acquisition rules, the president can call the shots.
Remaking a Bargain: The Political Logic of the Minimum Wage in the United States
Poverty & Public Policy: A Global Journal of Social Security, Income, Aid and Welfare
2013-03-26
This essay explores how political processes shaped the origins and development of the federal minimum wage in the United States, attempting to impose an order and logic on that process. It offers an analytically grounded narrative that abstracts from the historical details and interprets a broad sweep of outcomes between the New Deal and the present. Rather than identifying only the preferences of the ardent minimum wage supporters (and opponents), I identify those members of an enacting coalition (including the president) or veto players whose preferences had to be taken into account for a minimum wage bargain to be struck. For each episode, the analytical narrative identifies the coalition that made the minimum wage agreement—the members of Congress among whom a bargain was struck and codified into legislation, plus (usually) the president. The narrative also determines the nature of the compromise that enabled members of an enacting coalition to adopt an increase in the minimum wage. In each instance, policymakers were “heirs” before they were choosers: The heavy hand of later New Deal history shaped subsequent political choices.
“Obama Lies, Grandma Dies”: The Uncertain Politics of Medicare and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law
2011 In the summer of 2009, congressional town hall events became shouting matches over health care reform, and the Medicare program found itself front and center in the political battle.
Child Health Research Funding and Policy: Imperatives and Investments for a Healthier World
Pediatrics
2010 In light of the declining support for pediatric biomedical research, the Federation of Pediatric Organizations held a topic symposium at the 2009 Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting as a forum for discussion of the past and future states of funding, the rationale for directing public funds toward the understanding of child health and disease, and new programs and paradigms for promoting child health research. This report of the symposium is intended to disseminate more broadly the information presented and conclusions discussed
Social