Democracy and Institutions

BY MARK DLUGASH It was described as a fortress: a “brand new, state of the art, top-security prison.” Fortified by inner and outer perimeters, topped with razor wires, and circumscribed by a huge fence, it was protected by a hair-trigger alarm system and omnipresent security cameras. It was built not outside of Washington, DC, or […]

Rami George Khouri is a Palestinian-Jordanian and U.S. citizen whose family resides in Beirut, Amman, and Nazareth. He is director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. His journalistic work includes writing books and an internationally syndicated column, and he also serves as editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily […]

BY VIVEK CHILUKURI When President Obama announced an ambitious plan to reduce gun violence, he surrounded himself with children. By invoking their safety as his chief aim, the president imbued his efforts with our deeply felt and universal impulse to protect the young. When it comes to protecting their futures, however, Washington has shown no […]

BY MARK DIAZ TRUMAN I heard about the Connecticut shooting early in the day, but the full effect of it didn’t hit me until I got home late on Friday night. It was too much to process, too close to the Oregon shooting on Tuesday that left two dead and one wounded at a Happy […]

BY ALEX REMINGTON In the English-speaking world, I have seen it written, the two most widely quoted sources are the King James Bible and the collected works of William Shakespeare, two Elizabethan corpora that together helped crystallize English into its present form. In the past four hundred years, no other works have had anything close […]

BY AHMED MOOR It was “one of these compressed moments, where an entire story is told in a headline,” says Harvard Kennedy School Professor Richard Parker. “The story narrative is so simple—and so powerful—that there is no way that Romney can easily escape.” To hear more of Professor Parker’s discussion of Romney’s “47%” comment, listen […]

Real regime change in Libya means new leaders and new technocrats. The international community must help train them. In November 2011, Dr. Mahmoud Jibril, former Interim Prime Minister and chair of Libya’s National Transitional Council, opened the Harvard Arab Weekend conference on a pessimistic note: “for 42 years, Qaddafi managed to minimize the government.” Talking […]

BY CASEY SCHUTTE The law does not trust them to vote. It forbids them from watching certain movies in the theater or signing up for a credit card on their own. Consuming alcohol is certainly off limits, as is smoking cigarettes. Society proscribes certain activities for these people because, the thinking goes, they lack the […]

BY SEAN KATES The millennium could have started better for Americans. We saw the nation voluntarily enter two wars costly in terms both monetary and human. An ineffective government response exacerbated one environmental disaster, while private cupidity and stupidity caused another. Promises of universal home ownership crashed down around us, aided by slick financial creations […]

BY SACHA FEINMAN Andrew Sullivan is a journalist and political commentator. A former editor of the New Republic, he is a widely published author known for his irreverent and fiery political commentary, showcased in his blog, the Dish. He is a graduate of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. KSR The […]

BY ABIGAIL BELLOWS As pro-democracy revolutions swept the Arab world last year, citizens in the world’s two largest democracies also rose up. In India, a massive anticorruption movement spearheaded by activist Anna Hazare started in April 2011 and boomed in August. In the United States, Occupy Wall Street and its sister movements sprung up in […]

BY HANNA SIEGEL The American political system is exhibiting cracks. The approval rating for Congress has reached a record low of 13 percent, and more than 2.5 million voters have left the two major parties since the 2008 election (Washington Post-ABC News Poll 2012; Wolf 2011). Yet many Americans want change, and they are organizing […]