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Jails: America’s Biggest Mental Health Facilities

07.30.18

BY CATIA SHARP James Boyd set up camp for his last time in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, where you can see all of Albuquerque laid out before you under the sunset. Unfortunately, he was camping without the requisite permit. James had been homeless for a long time. James was shot to death by […]

Democracy: Why Bother?

07.25.18

By AMITA ARUDPRAGASAM The United States and Europe have traditionally spent substantial financial and human resources to promote democracy. They fund workshops, research, and civil society organizations with the goal of promoting freedom of speech and association, free and fair elections, and the rule of law. While global democracy is not in peril, democracy promotion […]

When Development Isn’t Complicated

07.23.18

BY GRANT TUDOR AND JUSTIN WARNER “The explanation of the amazingly high standard of rice cultivation in Bali is to be found in Montesquieu’s conclusion that ‘the yield of the soil depends less on its richness than on the degree of freedom enjoyed by those who till it.’”[1] – A. Liefrinck, Dutch Colonial Officer, 1887 […]

When Community Policing Isn’t Enough

07.20.18

BY JULIUS LIM Videos of the arrest of a 21-year-old black Harvard University student on April 13 have once again drawn attention to the discussion of police brutality. The student, identified as Selorm Ohene, a Ghanaian, was arrested by the Cambridge Police Department (CPD) after the CPD had received reports about a naked man on […]

Asian Americans Should Support Affirmative Action

07.19.18

As Asian American students at Harvard, we do not support the Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) lawsuit. We also condemn the recent decision by the Department of Education and the Department of Justice to rescind federal policy guidelines on affirmative action. Our racial identity and experiences are being used to dismantle civil rights protections, but […]

Fairness and Justice

Stop Worrying About the Supreme Court. There’s a Bigger Fight on Our Hands.

07.18.18

BY MICHAEL AUSLEN In the weeks since the Supreme Court term ended and Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the bench, many progressives, myself included, have felt the same collective unease. We don’t yet know all that President Trump’s appointment of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court will mean for civil liberties, but […]

Disrupting National Service Policy: An Alternative for Ben Davis and Singapore

07.17.18

Ben Davis should be allowed to disrupt or defer National Service, writes Brendan Dean. That this will not be allowed under current policy shows that the policy should be changed, to recognise the dynamics of team sports and the contributions to national spirit that having Singaporeans on the world athletic stage makes. The supposed choice between duty and talent development is a false dichotomy.

A Fairer Playing Field in the New Economy: Creating New Rules for 21st-Century Corporate Might

07.16.18

BY MATTHEW E. SPECTOR The first year of the Trump administration coincided with dizzying shifts in American commercial institutions. Consolidation of consumer-facing businesses from AT&T and Aetna to Amazon and Disney brought new and increasingly pressing attention to market power—the consolidation of a well-defined market among a few firms, yielding anticompetitive prices that reduce consumer […]

Differential Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: New Perspectives Regarding Dani Rodrik’s Growth Strategies

07.15.18

Abstract: In this exciting reflection, Arthur A. Catraio, Researcher at the Brazilian School of Public Administration, makes the case for a more nuanced narrative around African growth prospects. He uses recent trends to highlight the analytical limitations of Dani Rodrik’s Growth Strategies (2003) concerning sub-Saharan African countries. He finds that countries like Botswana and Mauritius […]

Development and Economic Growth

Imagining a Killer Robot’s First Words: Engineering State-in-the-Loop Legal Responsibility for Fully Autonomous Weapons Systems

07.12.18

BY JESSICA “ZHANNA” MALEKOS SMITH As the U.S., the U.K., Russia, China, South Korea, and Israel begin developing fully autonomous weapons (FAW) systems, the issue of state responsibility for such systems remains undeveloped. In fact, the term “state responsibility” did not even appear in the United Nation’s Group of Governmental Experts Chair’s summary of the […]

New Tax Break Promises Opportunity—But for Whom?

07.10.18

BY ALYSSA DAVIS Although several U.S. cities and towns have undergone revitalization in the last decade, there are still many persistent pockets of concentrated poverty—distressed neighborhoods where outcomes are worse for residents across-the-board. The places where crime rates are higher, schools are low-performing, unemployment is high, and vacant storefronts abound. This has a devastating effect […]

Election Banners, Kilis - Adam Jones

Reconciling History: Secularism, Faith and Allegiance after Turkey’s June 24th Elections

07.9.18

The decision to support or reject the opposition in its appeals to AKP voters is bound up with its identity as the representative of official secularism, a reputation that has proved difficult to shake. The memory of the divisive 1970s and the terror-filled aftermath of the 1980 coup remains a deeply impactful force conditioning voter behavior. An understanding of these traumatizing years, which left few segments of society untouched, contextualizes the steep odds against which the opposition was forced to contend.

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