South Asia

The Harvard Project participates in a major Harvard initiative aimed at reducing emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Participating researchers represent a range of academic disciplines and Harvard schools.

Stephen Walt elaborates on what he is expecting for 2024:  the Israel-Gaza conflict widening, the 75th anniversary of NATO, the possible re-election of Donald Trump, and the election results from other populous democracies, to name a few.

Foreign Affairs has recently published a number of articles on how the United States should engage with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, extremist forces within the regime, how the West can help ordinary Afghans, and the fate of the country’s women. To complement these essays, Foreign Affairs asked a broad pool of experts for their take. As with previous surveys, Foreign Affairs approached dozens of authorities with expertise relevant to the question at hand, along with leading generalists in the field. Participants were asked to state whether they agreed or disagreed with a proposition and to rate their confidence level in their opinion. Two Belfer Center experts participated, International Security Executive Editor Jacqueline L. Hazelton and Future of Diplomacy Project Senior Fellow Paula Dobriansky.

Divestment is a prominent strategy championed by activists to induce positive social change. For example, the current fossil fuel divestment movement includes over 1,500 institutions that control $40 trillion in assets. A primary pathway through which divestment is theorized to be effective is by influencing public beliefs and policy preferences, thus pressuring policymakers to take action. However, prior research only tests this argument via qualitative case studies. The authors assess the impact of exposure to information about fossil fuel divestment on public opinion through the use of national survey experiments in three major greenhouse gas emitters: the U.S., India, and South Africa.

Meghan Garrity details the history of mass expulsions since the centennial of the signing of the Lausanne Convention—a treaty codifying the compulsory “population exchange” between Greece and Turkey. An estimated 1.5 million people were forcibly expelled from their homes: over one million Greek Orthodox Christians from the Ottoman Empire and 500,000 Muslims from Greece.

Pakistan’s floods of 2022 were the latest, and most damaging yet, addition to the long history of floods in the country. As the muddy waters slowly recede, the need for speeding up action to face future floods stands clear.

For many, integrating “decarbonization” into public policy, corporate and financial strategies has become a requirement, not an option — yet, what happens when the critical link between climate stability and decarbonization breaks?

Charli Carpenter argues that the Taliban should be isolated and shamed, and diplomatic recognition should be withheld until an inclusive government is in place. But in the meantime, the United States should do all in its power to protect and expand the human rights of women. Leading by example can be the most powerful form of advocacy.

On April 6, 2022,  the Belfer Center's Future of Diplomacy Project and Indo-Pacific Security Project as well as the Center for Public Leadership hosted a hybrid seminar with Ambassador Shivshankar Menon, former National Security Advisor of India and former Foreign Secretary in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, and Ambassador Richard Verma, former U.S. Ambassador to India and Belfer Center Senior Fellow, on India’s foreign policy and U.S.-India relations in a changing world order. The discussion explored why India abstained from recent U.N. votes deploring Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, what that means for U.S.-India relations, both bilateral and through the Quad, and how the war in Ukraine will affect geopolitics in Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific. Gopal Nadadur, MPA/ID candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School moderated this conversation.

Capital Choices analyzes the creation of different SWFs from a comparative political economy perspective, arguing that different state-society structures at the sectoral level are the drivers for SWF variation. Juergen Braunstein focuses on the early formation period of SWFs, a critical but little understood area given the high levels of political sensitivity and lack of transparency that surround SWF creation. Braunstein’s novel analytical framework provides practical lessons for the business and finance organizations and policymakers of countries that have created, or are planning to create, SWFs.