While the class will generally focus on issues of "great importance"... there are many less apparently serious but equally fascinating comparative administration issues. For example, some countries strictly control the names that can be given to children. See the following story:
Laws Against Baby Names
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/a-baby-boy-named-q/?hp
But this is not just a trivial issue and can end up having major policy/program/administrative impacts. On Day 5 we will be talking about regional integration and globalization One of the administrative barriers to the free movement of people within the Nordic Union was the Icelandic naming convention, which uses a traditional patronymic system no longer used in the other Nordic countries. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_name . I also address this issue in my article on Open Borders that is an additional reading on the topic of immigration)
John C
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I just love it when New Jersey store clerks interpret public policy based on their reading of icing on birthday cakes, which has absolutely nothing to do with immigration in Iceland, other than icing (sorry)! Warren County probably has the same population as Iceland and a comparable attachment to baby names, but perhaps that's where the similarity ends. But what were those NJ parents thinking?
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