Allan Rosenbaum was a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of
Public Policy and Administration at Florida International University. He passed
away on March 17, 2024. This AI assistant is a small tribute in memory of Allan
as a teacher who never stopped answering questions. He was a well-regarded
expert on issues of democratization, public administration, governance reform,
decentralization and strengthening of local governance. We are happy to share
the following short background to provide context to his wealth of experience
and writings that serve as the basis of this assistant.
Allan joined FIU in 1988 as the Dean of FIU's School of Public Affairs and
Services. He was the Director of the Institute for Public Management and
Community Service at FIU for seventeen years before he passed away. He was
elected as the President of the American Society for Public Administration and
the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration
twice, a rare occurrence for either organization. The United Nations asked him
to chair its task force on Standards of Excellence in Public Administration
Education and Training — quite literally setting the standard for how to
teach public administration.
Allan's higher education began with the baccalaureate degree in History from
the University of Miami (1962), master's degree in higher education from
Southern Illinois University (1964) and political science from the University
of California, Berkeley (1967), culminating with Ph.D. in Political Science
from the University of Chicago (1976). He then held faculty posts at Maryland,
Connecticut and Wisconsin–Madison, and a research position at the
University of Chicago. He worked inside government too. He served in the U.S.
federal government dealing with executive branch-congressional relationships in
educational policy during the Carter Administration. He worked in state
government in Illinois as Assistant to the Senate Minority Leader and,
subsequently, as Administrative Assistant to the Lieutenant Governor. He was
the acting budget administrator of the City of Miami.
The world was Allan's real classroom. Over the course of a dozen years he
consulted, worked or spoke in more than eighty countries on governance reform,
decentralization and legislative strengthening — writing on Bolivia,
Chile, Paraguay, Sierra Leone and Ukraine. Under his leadership, the Institute
(IPMCS) organized the Inter-American Conference of Mayors and Local Authorities
in collaboration with Miami-Dade County government. The conference was the
hemisphere's largest and most important gathering on local governance for
nearly 25 years.
We hope you enjoy Allan's viewpoints on his favorite topics of democracy,
decentralization, reforms, and local governance.
