BY ASHLEY LEE Increasingly, we have come to think of digital platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as the public sphere, a place where citizens can freely discuss the issues of the day and engage with a diversity of opinions. However, the core business model of these companies—selling ads by harvesting the attention of targeted […]

Perhaps it is time to ask if Mahmoud Abbas, now 82 and in the fourteenth year of his original four-year term in office, should work harder to gain strong domestic support for a sustained international campaign against the Israeli occupation.

BY EMILY MIDDLETON Imagine a traffic system so smart that it can cut your commute in half. Imagine paths that heat up in winter, so you don’t have to walk in the snow. Imagine sensors that make it easier for the blind to get around the city, and quicker for ambulances to reach their patients. […]

BY ASAD RAMZANALI If you believe the standard Silicon Valley narrative, technologies like artificial intelligence will cause unprecedented levels of job loss. The solution is universal basic income (UBI), an unconditional cash transfer for every citizen. While UBI may alleviate poverty and modernize welfare programs, it is not a solution for mass unemployment. If labor […]

Introduction On October 26, 2016, The Gambia became the third African country to announce its intention to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC).[1] Gambia’s decision came shortly after Burundi and South Africa expressed similar intentions, claiming as several other African states have, that the ICC had become biased and a political tool used against African […]

Dr. Bruce Rutherford, Associate Professor of Political Science at Colgate University, sits down with JMEPP Editor Elissa Miller to discuss political developments in Egypt since the 2011 revolution, including the current state of political Islam and prospects for democratic change in the country. This talk is part of the Middle East Initiative’s Inside the Middle East Q&A series.

BY HAMADA ZAHAWI A year ago I was a part of a delegation from the Harvard Kennedy School competing in the Student Challenge at the World Government Summit in Dubai, UAE. Against twelve teams, we won with a pitch to incentivize civic engagement through citizen-government digital coins that directly activate the power of the people. […]

By Brian Monahan, MPA 2018   Commencement day I will be wearing the “Donate Life” logo of the New England Organ Bank to promote awareness of the need for more organ donations. When I arrived at the Kennedy School with a successful kidney transplant of 20 years, I never imagined that I would be searching […]

When Tunisians took to the streets in protest in early January, the target of popular anger seemed clear: the democratically-elected Tunisian government, which had voted in December to pass the controversial 2018 Finance Law that went into effect on January 1. Most saliently, the public was becoming increasingly aware that the Finance Law was not crafted solely by Tunisia’s elected representatives – the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has loaned Tunisia massive sums of money since 2011, contributed heavily to the legislation.

In this week’s episode of the Middle East Weekly podcast, we discuss the worsening humanitarian situation in Eastern Ghouta, Syria, where over 1,000 people have been killed in 2 weeks and 400,000 families are living under siege, as Bashar al Assad’s forces attack the rebel-held city.

BY EKRAM IBRAHIM When President Donald Trump declared in December that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, many observers heard a death knell for Palestinian hopes that Jerusalem would serve as the future capital of an independent state. But in reality, aspirations for an Arab Jerusalem died long before – […]

A 2017 deal between Libya and Italy, which attempted to stem the flow of migrants from Libya to Europe, demonstrates the lucrative opportunities that insecurity offers for non-state armed groups, as well as the difficulty of divorcing militia engagement in criminal activities from ideological battles in Libya’s civil war.