Governance

45 Items

Dallas skyline and suburbs

Andreas Praefcke, 30 September 2009

Analysis & Opinions - The Washington Post

The decline of the middle class is causing even more economic damage than we realized

| September 29, 2016

I have just come across an International Monetary Fund working paper on income polarization in the United States that makes an important contribution to the secular stagnation debate. The authors — Ali Alichi, Kory Kantenga and Juan Solé — use standard econometric techniques to estimate the impact of declines in middle class incomes on total consumer spending. They find that polarization has reduced consumer spending by more than 3 percent or about $400 billion annually. If these findings stand up to scrutiny, they deserve to have a policy impact.

Hanan Al Hroub (second from right) speaks with students from the Harvard Kennedy School and Graduate School of Education during her visit to Harvard, September 22, 2016.

Bennett Craig, Belfer Center

News

Askwith Forum: Education as a Human Right with Hanan Al Hroub

September 22, 2016

A video recording from the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Askwith Forum on September 22, 2016, featuring Hanan Al Hroub, recipient of the 2016 Global Teacher Prize from the Varkey Foundation and a teacher at Samiha Khalil Secondary School in Palestine. Ms. Al Hroub delivered a public address on the topic of "Education as a Human Right" and discussed her experiences as a Palestinian educator and her unique approach to instruction.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton walks from her daughter Chelsea's apartment building Sunday, Sept. 11, 2016, in New York.

AP Photo/Craig Ruttle

Analysis & Opinions - TIME / time.com

Women Are Taught to Work Through Sickness and Pain

| September 13, 2016

Although Jen Palmieri, Hillary Clinton’s communications director, acknowledged that the campaign should have let the press know sooner that Secretary Clinton was fine, following her leaving the 9/11 memorial for health reasons on Sunday, working women have known for decades that even when you’re sick, you work. Mothers joke that they aren’t allowed to get sick, and advertisers rake in profits for cold and flu relievers that allow moms to go on doing their jobs. And women in the workplace, often judged for how strong or weak they are, regularly come to work even when they should be home in bed—even when society should allow for rest and recovery.

I learned this lesson early in life. During my early professional years, somehow my body knew it had to wait to get sick until it was time for annual leave. So I ended up spending my vacation time nursing bad sinus infections or flu, before flu shots. Later in my professional career, I simply learned to soldier on, no matter what.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy, right, confers with his brother Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy at the White House on Oct. 1, 1962 during the buildup of military tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union that became the Cuban missile crisis.

AP Photo

Magazine Article - The Atlantic

Why the President Needs a Council of Historians

| September 2016

We urge the next president to establish a White House Council of Historical Advisers. Historians made similar recommendations to Presidents Carter and Reagan during their administrations, but nothing ever came of these proposals. Operationally, the Council of Historical Advisers would mirror the Council of Economic Advisers, established after World War II. A chair and two additional members would be appointed by the president to full-time positions, and respond to assignments from him or her. They would be supported by a small professional staff and would be part of the Executive Office of the President.

- Belfer Center Newsletter

Faculty Interview: Working 'Smart' in Saudi Arabia: Asim Khwaja on Transformation in the Kingdom and the Future of Policymaking

| August 24, 2016

An interview with MEI Faculty Affiliate Asim Khwaja on his work at the Center for International Development's Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) program with the Saudi Ministry of Labor on labor market policy as well as EPoD's Smart Policy Design and Implementation methodology and implications for the future of informed, iterative policymaking.

How Global Corporations Should Confront Pervasive Distrust

Pixabay

Analysis & Opinions - Fortune

How Global Corporations Should Confront Pervasive Distrust

| July 12, 2016

Corporations have been attacked from both right and left during the 2016 presidential election: on trade, on immigration, on campaign finance, on crony capitalism, on inequality. Fortune Editor and long-time political reporter Alan Murray says business-government relations in the U.S. are “easily the worst in the three decades I’ve covered them.” But the current across-the-spectrum, anti-corporate distemper and distrust is a global trend as reflected in the Brexit vote which overrode consensus concerns about injury to both UK and non-UK business.

teaser image

Analysis & Opinions - The Oregonian

The Islamic State has made a big mistake

| July 7, 2016

In the global revulsion at the recent terror attacks in four Muslim countries, the United States and its allies have a new opportunity to build a unified command against the Islamic State and other extremists. FDP Senior Fellow David Ignatius examines the diplomatic relationships needed to create an effective counterterrorism strategy.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Orga Cadet: Connecting Law and Policy

    Author:
  • Hunter Harris
| Fall/Winter 2015-2016

As a Belfer Center International and Global Affairs (BIGA) student fellow, Orga Cadet sees every international affairs issue from two perspectives. Instead of right or wrong, prudent or risky, he sees the policy side and the law side: Cadet is a dual degree candidate, pursuing his Master of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, while also spending this semester in Beijing finishing his Juris Doctor degree through a study abroad program with Georgetown University.

Global Learning: Fredrik Logevall (left), then Cornell University vice provost, with Pratim Roy, director of India's Keystone Center, after signing an agreement to establish a shared research center in Tamil Nadu.

(Cornell University)

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

Spotlight: Fredrik Logevall

| Fall/Winter 2015-2016

Fredrik Logevall is the Laurence D. Belfer Professor of International Affairs and professor of history at Harvard Kennedy School, based at the Belfer Center. An expert on the history of international affairs, he was until recently a professor of history at Cornell University. He is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (Random House, 2012). In 2014, Logevall served as president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Book - Penguin Press

Kissinger: Volume 1: The Idealist, 1923-1968

| September 29, 2015

Few figures provoke as much passionate disagreement as Henry Kissinger. Equally revered and reviled, his work as an academic, national security adviser, diplomat, and strategic thinker indelibly shaped America’s role in the 20th century. Kissinger’s counsel knew few boundaries: His advice was sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama. Yet the man and his ideas remain the object of profound misunderstanding.

Drawing on 50 archives around the world, including Kissinger’s private papers, this book by Niall Ferguson, Kissinger: Volume 1: The Idealist, 1923-1968, argues that America’s most controversial statesman, and the cold war history he witnessed and shaped, must be seen in a new light.