Volume 27, Issue 1 (2015)

In this edition of the journal several articles address a range of important, and in some cases too often overlooked policy issues, too broad in scope for their conclusions and recommendations to be encapsulated adequately in a brief paragraph. Their diversity, however, highlights a key characteristic of the New England Journal of Public Policy – that of being open to publishing articles that have insightful bearings on how public policy is addressed, not only in the New England states, but throughout the country and in the international community – a community of nations increasingly interdependent with constraints on national sovereignty we are still grappling to come to terms with. Globalization, too often now used in derogatory contexts, is irreversible. Like it or not it has shrunk our territorial domains. We can no longer analyze issues of consequential import within the narrow confines of our national/state jurisdictions. Drawing on ‘best practice’ means being open to a critical examination of the experiences of other states and a willingness to explore the practices of the broader community beyond our narrow confines. The boundaries of learning have expanded as the constrictions of globalization make us all denizens of that metaphorical global village.