Democracy and Institutions

In 2012, a record 11.2 million Latinos voted in the presidential election. Despite the record turnout, another 12.1 million eligible Latinos still chose not to vote. The 48% voter turnout rate amongst Latinos is no small feat, but it paled in comparison to the 66.6% voter turnout rate of Blacks and the 64.1% of Whites.[i] […]

Listen Here! The Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School invited Harvard students to participate in the conference America Adelante: Latino Leadership and Influence in the U.S. on March 31-April 1, 2016.  Alberto Mendoza, Executive Director of the National Association for Hispanic Journalists addressed the important of Latinos in management position. Only 4% of managers in the news industry […]

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) appears on the brink of another major crisis, just as the country begins to recover from successive decades of war. Presidential elections scheduled for November 2016 look increasingly likely to be postponed by the Congolese government and tensions are fast on the rise. The authorities have cracked down on […]

BY TANIA DEL RIO The war on drugs is fueling conflict and destroying families. It is time for the global community to recognize that after 50 years of failure, the only practical and humane policy is to end the punitive approach by decriminalizing mild substances and controlling toxic ones. This week’s UN Special Session on […]

Abstract This article advocates for the daily reaffirmation of democracy and protection of human rights in Latin America by politicians and civil society alike. Through the remembrance of the Chilean transition to democracy, the article highlights the tremendous costs that Chileans assumed to move Chile towards a consolidated democracy and the many years it has […]

  BY CHANTE LANTOS-SWETT On Monday, March 7, at 11:30 a.m., more than 3,000 students from schools all across the Boston Public School District stood up from their desks and joined their peers in front of the State House to protest a proposed $50 million cut to the 2016-2017 school year budget. Armed with protest […]

Problem Thirty-five percent of women worldwide have experienced sexual violence in their lifetimes[1]. In Nigeria, domestic violence is pervasive across socioeconomic and cultural contexts. Forty-five percent of affected women suffer abuse from their current husband or partner[2]. According to a US Department of State Human Rights Report, the practice of domestic violence has “remained widespread […]

BY JEN SMITH Over the weekend, the Panama Papers were top news from Argentina to Zimbabwe. They have dominated the coverage in The Guardian and Financial Times, two British papers. By contrast, the New York Times placed the story on page 3; the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal were similarly quiet. With more than […]

BY ANDREA SORCE If you’re from North Carolina like me, your social media feeds blew up last Wednesday afternoon. #wearenotthis. “We” being North Carolinians. “This” being HB2, the sweeping anti-LGBT legislation passed last Wednesday in a specially-convened session. HB2 prohibits transgender residents from using restrooms that match their gender identity and also nullifies municipal anti-discrimination […]

BY JASMINE CHIA, YAN MIN AUNG, AND KARENG BRANG SHAWNG Myanmar has suffered one of the world’s longest running civil wars, one rooted in ethnic conflict. The fighting continues to the present day: the Arakan Army is still launching insurgent attacks in Rakhine state, a state on Myanmar’s western coast, and the Kachin Independence Army, […]

While a March 2016 raid in Irbid, Jordan by the country’s security services resulted in the successful apprehension of 13 accused terrorist plotters[i], events both inside the Hashemite Kingdom and throughout the region may threaten the stability that has earmarked Jordan and its King as a vital ally in the U.S.-led fight against Islamist extremism […]

BY BENJAMIN LUXENBERG President Obama should offer the Merrick Garland nomination to the Supreme Court in the form of a “forward contract” to Senate Republicans. As defined by Investopedia, forward contracts are “a customized contract between two parties to buy or sell an asset at a specified price on a future date.” One of the […]