The Call to Rome and Other Obstacles to State-Level Innovation
本文探讨美国联邦制下州级政策创新的障碍，指出创新者因获得全国性关注而离开州政府（如被“召唤到罗马”），从而阻碍了创新的实施与完善。
Among the important virtues attributed to the American federal system is its stimulus for policy innovation. The states on their own initiative can institute programs that may later become the model for national action. In this sense, America has 50 separately-directed laboratories in which to experiment with the design of public policies. A new approach to a common problem can be tested in one or several states before being considered for adoption nationally. Because the states manage many federal programs, they can apply independent judgment and a knowledge of local circumstances to improve them. Federalism's decentralized administration encourages the conceptualization and presentation of new ideas.' As Nelson Rockefeller once expressed it, the states can offer special scope to creativity, imagination, and innovation in meeting the needs. . of a large and complex society.2 To succeed, innovations must progress from presentation to first adoption to diffusion, and each stage has unique problems.3 Skill is needed to move ideas along this precarious path. A governor or commissioner, anxious to create an innovative administration, may bring into state government a team of able assistants to design new programs. However, the presentation of new ideas often brings the designers widespread attention and career opportunities such as the chance to serve in a larger jurisdiction - the Call to Rome perhaps. The reward for creativity draws talent away from state government at the point when the ideas are being implemented and refined. The understandable urge to