A month has passed since the majority of Colombians voted ‘No’ in a national plebiscite on the peace agreement that the Colombian government had signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Cartagena (50.21% -6.43 million votes- to 49,78% -6.38 million votes-). That night, President Juan Manuel Santos addressed the country on TV […]

This article appeared in JMEPP’s Spring 2016 print edition. The ongoing civil war in Syria has reignited interest in no-fly zones as policy options for halting violence against civilians and maintaining stability in conflict-ridden regions. In order to evaluate the success of this policy option, this article will survey a portion of relevant literature to […]

BY MELISSA BENDER I was a 19 year-old college sophomore in November 2008. I had never voted before, let alone organized my classmates around anything bigger than the boundaries of our campus. But the tension between my civic duty as a voter and my academic duty as a college student was called into question, and […]

Embed from Getty Images Police brutality and the impunity of the security forces, though far from the only cause, were a major catalyst of the Arab Spring uprisings of 2010-11. In Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi’s humiliating encounters with local police led him to light himself on fire. In Alexandria, Egypt, Khaled Mohamed Said was […]

BY JILLIAN RAFFERTY Since August, I’ve travelled to New Hampshire to canvass for the Democratic Party half a dozen times. I’ve knocked on doors in Rye, in Nashua, and in Londonderry. I’ve spoken to folks from across the political spectrum, from age 19 to 86. From all those conversations, no voter left a deeper impression […]

BY SEBASTIAN LANGER Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) announced it’s 2017 election budget: 20 million Euro (around $22.1 million) on October 21. This is not the full sum needed for the campaign—every district’s candidate has to raise another 6,000 to 10,000 Euro for his or her personal campaigning. But that’s all. […]

By David Duesing, MPP 2018 The Kennedy School was honored to host a conversation between former Secretary of Defense and two-term Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel and Peabody award-winning news reporter and Institute of Politics Resident Fellow Ann Compton in the JFK Jr. Forum on Tuesday, November 1, 2016. Secretary Hagel did not mince words in […]

Embed from Getty Images “Turkey is at a crossroads!” has become the rallying cry for commentators as the country grapples with terrorism, a coup attempt, and a reshaping of its domestic and international stances. The cliché has long described Turkey as a country straddling two continents, torn between East and West – its imperial history tied to […]

By David Duesing, MPP 2018 In light of accusations of both domestic and international interference in this year’s election from both parties’ presidential candidates, the JFK Jr. Forum hosted a panel of electoral security experts on Thursday, October 27 to discuss current security measures in place for U.S. elections, as well as potential techniques to […]

BY KATIE BURHKART AND NATALIE UNTERSTELL The Amazon rainforest and the Arctic Ocean both conjure images of frontier lands: the Arctic as a cold and desolate region inhabited by reindeer and polar bears, and threatened by a warming climate; the Amazon as a dense, humid forest teeming with wildlife and threatened by deforestation. Both are […]

Throughout his campaign for president of the United States, Republican nominee Donald Trump has time and time again denigrated Muslim communities living on American soil and abroad. Trump’s critics have underscored how promoting the prejudicial treatment of Muslims only helps to strengthen anti-American Islamist organizations. By targeting Muslims, the arguments go, Trump inadvertently validates claims made […]

BY DAVID PAYNE In 1st grade, I was labeled as gifted in math. One problem, I was not gifted. I can understand the error; I solved advanced problems with ease. Over the years, my teachers kept me occupied with a variety of approaches while my classmates were in math class. In 2nd grade, I was […]