Bryan Stevenson speaks about the power of hope in the face of hopelessness “The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. From 300,000 in 1972, it has crossed 2.3 million citizens today,” said Harvard alumnus Bryan Stevenson at the Edwin L. Godkin Lecture on Tuesday, December 4. “The number of women […]

The woman in this painting was supposed to be Black. Drawing this piece was one of the most emotionally damaging experiences of my life. I live in Jeju Island, South Korea. Before coming to live in the island, I was in China where I met a Black girl, with whom I became very close friends […]

BY RYAN CARTERS When my wife’s grandmother and aunt died from breast cancer, no one knew it was linked to a hereditary BRCA2 gene mutation. My wife was luckier. She found out in her twenties, and opted for a double mastectomy to reduce her risks. The next generation may have less cause to worry; it […]

Financial hubs in Middle Eastern urban centers such as Dubai foster technological innovation, but the existing political framework in the Gulf and across the region remains in urgent need of reform to solidify recent economic successes and ensure that future generations of entrepreneurs can follow in their footsteps.

BY WILL LINDSEY The opioid epidemic will likely go down as one of the largest public health crises of our lifetime. While opioids don’t command daily headlines, the crisis still kills approximately 72,000 in the United States a year, surpassing annual automobile deaths. In my home state of North Carolina, the Center for Disease Control […]

Trump’s statement on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi is worth examining for the baldness of its cynicism and perhaps unprecedented about-face on human rights. But Congress still has an opportunity to act where the White House falls short.

Imagine a modern city of sleek infrastructure offering the latest technological amenities for its citizens such as sensor crosswalks, free internet, electric traffic monitors, and other futuristic features. This vision of utopia is slowly, but steadily, coming into fruition in several urban cities, most notably in Singapore, Seoul, and New York. Plans to integrate smart […]

African states are increasingly leveraging the power of telecom operators to advance goals that the state itself struggles to secure (e.g. security and fiscal goals). This suggests a paradigmatic shift in African politics, whereby telecom operators have become a face of the state, exerting agency over state and citizen in pervasive and sometimes unexpected ways. […]

BY ERIN GREGOR Populism may have toppled the domino theory. On April 7, 1954, just before Vietnamese nationalists led by communist Ho Chi Minh won a decisive battle at Dien Bien Phu, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of countries falling like dominoes to communism. “You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over […]

Advice for the modern HKS student Thank you for sending us your questions! Gagan Vaseer, The Citizen’s advice columnist, answers your questions with some lighthearted advice. Question 1: Gagan, I like this guy in my program. We always have great conversation when we see each other, and he always says we should get coffee but […]

BY JASON HUNG The “bookstore incidents” In January 2018, Hong Kong-based Swedish Chinese publisher, Gui Minhai, was snatched by mainland Chinese authorities in Ningbo, China. Supposedly, Gui was on his way to Sweden’s consulate in Shanghai to renew his Swedish passport. It was the second time Gui went missing in two and a half years. […]

Venezuela is facing one of the biggest social collapses in modern history. The combination of economic and political unrest has mobilized millions of Venezuelans to leave their home and families behind to seek a better future, mostly to Latin American countries. With conservative estimates from around 2.6 to 3.4 million, though some reach as far […]