News & Announcements

Belfer Center Director Graham Allison discussed his book Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World at a Cambridge Forum in Harvard Square on October 21. The public event also was broadcast by National Public Radio stations across the country.

Harvard and Beijing representatives met in Beijing January 13–16, 2013 to discuss challenges and opportunities in U.S.-China relations. Richard Rosecrance, director of Harvard's U.S.-China Relations Project, writes that despite a warm welcome and  cordial personal relations on both sides, "no agreements were reached on short or long term policy."

When Lee Kuan Yew speaks, who listens? Presidents, prime ministers, chief executives, and all who care about global strategy.

Graham Allison and Robert D. Blackwill, two leading strategic thinkers, asked Lee Kuan Yew the toughest questions that matter most to thoughtful Americans weighing the challenges of the next quarter century. The result is their new book, Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World – published today by MIT Press.

Time magazine’s Feb. 4, 2013 international edition published an extensive excerpt from the new book, Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World (MIT Press, Feb. 1, 2013), by Graham Allison and Robert D. Blackwill, with Ali Wyne. The book draws on their in-depth interviews with Lee and his voluminous writings and speeches. The excerpt in Time distills Lee’s strategic insights about the future of China.

In Joseph S. Nye's THE FUTURE OF POWER, he offers a rigorous analysis of the international fault lines of the twenty-first century, discussing issues such as nuclear proliferation, radical Islam, and the return of Asia. He shows how U.S. power and influence can best be deployed to help resolve critical global issues.

The Index of African Governance, produced at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, ranks all 53 African countries according to their ability to provide good governance for their inhabitants. The full Index report illustrates the enormous variety of governance performance on the continent. Mauritius, the Seychelles, Cape Verde, and Botswana are the four best governed countries this year, as they were in last year's annually produced Index, then called the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. Tunisia, Ghana, Algeria, Namibia, South Africa, and São Tomé and Príncipe round out the top ten best overall performers.

With the United States and China expected to be the two dominant powers in the twenty-first century, it is essential that they actively manage their relationship to avoid military conflict, a group of distinguished Chinese and American scholars said at a major conference in Washington, D.C. The scholars—from Harvard Kennedy School, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and elsewhere—have worked together for more than two years to create a blueprint for a new relationship between the two countries.

All citizens of all countries desire to be governed well. That is what citizens want from the nation-states in which they live. Thus, nation-states in the modern world are responsible for the delivery of essential political goods to their inhabitants.

Small states, island states, and Botswana and South Africa are the best governed countries in sub-Saharan Africa according to this year's Index of African Governance, released today by researchers at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island-state, tops the list of well-governed territories for the second year, the Seychelles is second, Cape Verde third, Botswana fourth, and South Africa fifth.

Former President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, who led his country's recovery from its devastating 16-year civil war, on Monday won the first Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African leadership.