Africa

116 Items

Military watching the start of work on the first part of some 180 kilometers of a 5.5 meter-high metal wall

AP/Czarek Sokolowski

Magazine Article - Foreign Affairs

When Migrants Become Weapons: The Long History and Worrying Future of a Coercive Tactic

| March/April 2022

Kelly Greenhill argues that by exploiting political divisions that exist within targeted states, the threatened or actual deployment of engineered flows of migrants has long been a distressingly effective policy instrument, and it is unlikely to go away anytime soon. Unless policymakers begin to confront the forces that enable weaponized migration, the favored policy responses seem destined to increase, rather than curtail, its use.

President-elect Joe Biden and his climate envoy, John Kerry, at The Queen theater.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Analysis & Opinions - Bloomberg Opinion

What Does Success Look Like for a Climate Czar?

| Dec. 02, 2020

President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to create a new cabinet-level position for climate-related issues — and to choose so prominent a figure as former Secretary of State John Kerry to fill it — demonstrates Biden’s sincerity over putting climate at the very center of U.S. foreign policy. It is easy to understate the importance of this appointment, given the flurry of czars created by most new administrations.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns gives remarks.

BTI Project / YouTube

Analysis & Opinions

How to Dismantle Democracy: Authoritarian Trends from A(merica) to Z(ambia)

| June 25, 2020

Authoritarian modes of governing have steadily increased over the past 10 years. A number of autocracies have intensified their repressive tactics, while several democracies – many of which were once classified as consolidated – have tampered with fundamental rights and the rule of law. Despite a few developments to the contrary, the Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI) 2020 highlights the ongoing decline of democracy around the globe.

The presentation of BTI results focused on the resembling patterns of dismantling democracy in (highly) defective democracies such as Hungary, Moldova, the Philippines, Serbia or Zambia and regimes in which this process has been so pronounced that they are now categorized as autocracies in the BTI, such as Bangladesh, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Turkey or Uganda. It looked at the typical sequence to an authoritarian deconstruction of democratic institutions from within, from the purposeful undermining of oversight institutions, attacking the media and civil society to manipulating the electoral system, in order to examine the resonance of these trends in the United States. The goal of the discussion is to identify the features and underlying causes of this erosion, and to suggest promising counter-strategies.

Erica Chenoweth, HKS Professor of Public Policy (center), talks with Belfer Center Director Ash Carter (right).

Belfer Center/Benn Craig

Q&A: Erica Chenoweth

| Spring 2019

This Q&A focuses on Erica Chenoweth, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her research focuses on political violence and its alternatives. Foreign Policy magazine ranked her among the Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013. Her forthcoming book, Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know, explores what civil resistance is, how it works, why it sometimes fails, how violence and repression affect it, and the long-term impacts of such resistance.

Zoe Marks (center) with her translator Patricia Turay and her family in Makeni, Sierra Leone, where Marks was researching impacts of civil war and its aftermath.

Zoe Marks

Q&A: Zoe Marks

| Spring 2019

This Q&A focuses on Zoe Marks, Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Her research and teaching interests focus on the intersections of conflict and political violence; race, gender and inequality; peacebuilding; and African politics. Her current book project examines the internal dynamics of rebellion in Sierra Leone to understand how and why rebel groups can sustain a viable threat to the state without widespread support.

Solar panel field and wind turbines

PIXNIO / hpgruesen

Book - Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.

Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy and Natural Resources

| 2018

This Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the latest research from leading scholars on the international political economy of energy and resources. Highlighting the important conceptual and empirical themes, the chapters study all levels of governance, from global to local, and explore the wide range of issues emerging in a changing political and economic environment.

Magazine Article - The Economist

Seeds of Change: Calestous Juma died on December 15th

| Jan. 11, 2018

Colleagues said he tweeted more than any professor they knew, and Calestous Juma’s tweets covered a swarm of things. Income inequality, and a free-trade area for Africa, you might expect. Those were the subjects he taught at Harvard: getting poorer countries, especially in Africa, to grow and thrive was the obsession of his life. But he also tweeted about a wheelchair that could climb stairs, the increasing size of steaks, and the maximum number of goats seen eating up in a tree. He was extra-delighted to send out a New York Times editorial, from 1878, about Thomas Edison’s new “aerophone”: “Something ought to be done about Mr Edison, and there is a growing conviction that it had better be done with a hemp rope.”

Calestous Juma

Martha Stewart/HKS

Newspaper Article - The Boston Globe

Calestous Juma, 64, Champion of Sustainable International Development

    Author:
  • Bryan Marquard
| Dec. 22, 2017

A professor of the practice of international development, and a writer of great range, Calestous Juma promoted technology for the poor and vulnerable throughout the world. He also wrote a book explaining why people are wary of innovation, and delighted his more than 100,000 Twitter followers by retweeting cartoons that ribbed those who are resistant to science.

Millions of Venezuelans marching on 20 May 2017 during the We Are Millions march.

Voice of America

Analysis & Opinions - Bloomberg Opinion

The Right Way to Do Regime Change in Venezuela

| Sep. 28, 2017

Unsurprisingly, President Donald Trump hasn’t held back when speaking about the political crisis in Venezuela. Before the United Nations General Assembly, he demanded the full restoration of “democracy and political freedoms” in the Latin American country. A month earlier, he stunned many by stating that he would not rule out a military intervention. His UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, has echoed the fierce rhetoric, declaring that the U.S. will not tolerate a “dictatorship” in Venezuela.

Observers are forgiven if they are perplexed. How is the administration’s position toward Venezuela consistent with its oft-stated insistence that every country has the right to be sovereign? Or with Trump’s promises that the days of Washington meddling in the domestic affairs of other countries are over?