GovNet Conference 2005 - Contemporary Issues in Governance

Invited Speakers

Untitled Document

Dr. Justin O’Brien, is Director of the Corporate Governance Programme at the School of Law, Queen's University, Belfast. Dr. O’Brien is a leading researcher on corporate governance design, with a particular emphasis on regulatory policy in the United States. He is the author of Wall Street on Trial (2003) and editor of Governing the Corporation, Regulation and Corporate Governance in an Age of Scandal and Global Markets (2005).

Dr O'Brien leads a major international research project centering on the domestic dimensions and extraterritorial implications of Sarbanes-Oxley, the corporate legislation introduced in the US in the aftermath of corporate scandal. The research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

In 'The Efficacy of Pre-Trial Diversion: Ethics, the Professions and the Market in the Aftermath of Corporate Scandal', Dr O'Brien addresses directly a number of key conference themes, with examples taken from the United States and Australia.

Dr O'Brien is a former Editor, Current Affairs at UTV in Belfast and has worked as an investigative journalist at the BBC and RTE.

Dr. Mel Dubnick is currently professor of Political Science and director of the MPA program at the University of New Hampshire. From September 2003 to June 2005 he was Visiting Professor and Senior Fellow at the Queen's University Belfast Institute of Governance, Public Policy and Social Research and he remains associated with Queen's as an International Research Fellow. His previous academic appointments were at Rutgers University-Newark, the City University of New York and the University of Kansas. He also holds adjunct professorship appointments at the University of Oklahoma and Columbia University.

Dubnick’s primary research and teaching interests focus on the role of accountability and ethics in governance He is also the co-author of textbooks on public policy analysis, public administration, and American government. He is former managing editor of Public Administration Review and co-editor in chief of Policy Studies Journal, and his list of scholarly publications include articles on a wide range of topics, including civic education, development planning, health care reform, government regulatory policies, intergovernmental relations, industrial policy, administrative reform, and teaching public policy.

His most recent writing focuses on the role of accountability under various "state-of-war" scenarios and (most recently) on how public service and other professionals deal with "accountability under fire”.

Dr. Dubnick’s promotes discussion of these issues, among others, through his ‘accountability blog’.