Democracy and Institutions

Across the country, we all hear the trumpeting of Hispanic Heritage Month. Elected officials, from local leaders to the highest office in the land, have released messages of inspiration, praising the contributions of our Latina/o community. Unfortunately, the media pays less attention to one group of voices, because it is a small group when compared […]

BY DAVID PAYNE This is part of a student series stemming from a discussion at the Harvard Kennedy School on gun control. If you would like us to include your voice, send your pitch to harvardksrpitches@gmail.com. Ten die in a mass shooting. The shooter was impressively well armed. President Obama takes the podium to offer […]

BY MICAELA CONNERY This is the first of a two-part student series stemming from a discussion at the Harvard Kennedy School on gun control. If you would like to respond, send your pitch to harvardksrpitches@gmail.com. On Wednesday, 15 Harvard Kennedy School students with differing opinions, backgrounds, and nationalities sat around a table to discuss gun […]

BY LUCY BOYD The second Republican debate in September covered everything from the Iranian nuclear deal to vaccinations. Climate Change. Immigration. Putin. China. All were given significant airtime during the lengthy three-hour time slot. One important topic left completely unaddressed: our failing public education system. But that may not be a bad thing. The Common […]

BY TANIA DEL RIO Things have not been quite the same in Mexico since Sept. 26, 2014. It is hard to know for sure what happened that day, and with the release of a report on Sept. 6, 2015, almost a year after, it became painfully obvious that we may never know. What is certain is […]

President Obama’s Middle East policy record in his first six years in office was mixed and lacked significant achievements. Overall, Obama’s approach was cautious, as the United States reacted to fast-moving events. U.S. strategy predominantly focused on degrading terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsula (AQAP) to prevent a major attack on […]

BY SHANOOR SEERVAI This essay is excerpted from the single ‘Daughters of the Red Light: Coming of Age in Mumbai’s Brothels.’ I am seated cross-legged on a brothel floor on a hot April afternoon. The door is ajar. Just beyond it, a disheveled man in a grey pinstriped shirt appears at the top of the […]

BY UZRA KHAN This piece appeared in our 2015 print journal. You can order your copy here.  One morning in 2014, Deepika Saran,1 a young employee at an e-commerce startup in Mumbai, got a call from The Times Group, India’s largest mass media company. “We’re interested in featuring your company in a supplemental spread on new […]

REVIEWED BY SAM WINTER-LEVY This piece appeared in our 2015 print journal. You can order your copy here.  In April 1897, just months after Theodor Herzl published The Jewish State and launched the Zionist movement, a steamer containing twenty-one dreamers docks in Jaffa. They are a delegation of upper-class British Jews, and they have traveled to […]

BY TYLER S. THIGPEN This piece appeared in our 2015 print journal. You can order your copy here.  The conversation that most haunted Marshall Chambers—former director of strategic initiatives for Barrow County Schools, a rural district in Georgia—happened in 2001 at one of the district’s high schools. Chambers, himself a graduate of Piedmont College in Demorest, […]

The Obergefell decision is a case that defines a generation. Marriage equality and LGBTQ rights are poised for a victory untenable for generations past. Just twelve years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Lawrence v. Texas and, as Justice Scalia argued in the dissent, doomed the “end of all morals legislation.” Lawrence […]

BY ALEXANDER W. SMITH Greece now stands at the edge of an economic and political precipice. By allowing the country to miss a €1.55 billion loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras demonstrated that he is no longer negotiating for Greece’s future. He is gambling with it. Greece’s effective default is […]