Politics

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 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 […]

The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University hosted a talk by Harvard Kennedy School Professor Tarek Masoud on Monday, November 9. The lecture, entitled “When God Speaks, Does Anyone Listen?” was based on a study Dr. Masoud conducted on one of his recent trips to Egypt. Dr. Masoud began the presentation by […]

BY MITCHELL ALVA Will history judge the 2014 midterm elections a Congressional wave year? The election certainly felt like a repeat of 2006 and 2010. After all, in all three elections, the party of an unpopular sitting President suffered significant losses in both the House of Representatives and the Senate with one chamber of Congress […]

BY TAYLOR WOODS It has been a love-fest on the campaign trail this year. During weekends in October and the days leading up to Election Day, I’ve been a volunteer canvasser knocking on doors for Mike Michaud’s run for governor of Maine, US Senator Jeanne Shaheen’s reelection campaign in New Hampshire, and Wendy Davis’s run […]

  I am honored to dedicate the APJ’s first blog post to a visionary who gallantly opted to sit on the right side of world history at the cost of his life: President Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso. This African hero was killed, dismembered and buried in an unmarked grave on October 15, 1987 during […]

On Thursday, October 2, 2014, Vice President Biden addressed an audience at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government on a range of foreign policy topics. As a special feature, the Kennedy School Review has collected student perspectives on some of the policy issues the vice president covered in his remarks. ———————– The Islamic State of […]

BY JACOB SHELLY When President Obama stood outside the Blue Room on September 10th to announce a major expansion of airstrikes in the Middle East, he explained that he had no other choice. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), he warned, poses a threat to the entire region — including American citizens, personnel, […]

BY ELIZABETH BENNETT Rwanda is the only country in the world where more women than men serve as elected officials. For a small, land-locked nation in the middle of sub-Saharan Africa, that’s an impressive distinction. But when you consider how far the country has come over two decades, it becomes downright astonishing. For Rwandans, the […]

Abstract This commentary illustrates how women of color, including Asian Americans, are rarely associated with having an active role in American politics. Based upon my experiences as the communications director for a state legislative race in Virginia, I shed light on hidden stereotypes associated with the intersection of gender, race, and nationality that emerge within political […]

BY BALE DALTON In the United States we are gearing up for another electoral season. Even though we won’t be electing a new president in 2014, candidates for Congress as well as state and local positions are girding themselves for political combat, convening staff for strategy sessions in war rooms and readying salvos for the […]

Most people who have an opinion about Mike Huckabee feel quite strongly about him. He is very popular amongst a wide swath of conservatives voters, especially those who root their political inclinations in their faith. For most progressives in America he seems dangerous, a bit fanatical, and out of touch. They fear what he might do with great power. Regardless of your opinion, I think you’ll see in the interview that he is quite intelligent and articulate. He is quick on his feet, and comfortable in front of a microphone. He doesn’t mind a good back and forth, and that’s good, because I asked him about what he sees in the Latino electorate, the separation between church and state, and the future of the equality movement in America.