Politics

Marginalized patient populations in the United States use emergency rooms at disproportionately higher rates than the average patient population. This high rate of utilization is due largely to a lack of accessible alternative options rather than an actual increased need of critical care. In other words, patients who are young, people of color, and have […]

On 23 June 2016, 33.6 million people and I stepped into polling booths to answer a yes-or-no question that would define the United Kingdom for generations.[1] According to the “Vote Leave” campaign, this was our opportunity to “take back control” and release the country from the unrelenting grip of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.[2] God forbid, […]

Listen Here! Welcome to our first HJHP Podcast episode for the 2019-2020 academic year. We kick off this year’s series, Pain to Power, with an interview with Delia Garcia, Kansas Secretary of Labor. In our conversation with Secretary Garcia, we learned about her journey from her family’s restaurant in Wichita to her role as an […]

Ameze Belo-Osagie: Today, we have the honor of sitting with His Excellency, President Nana Akufo-Addo on his birthday. Happy birthday, Mr. President!  My name is Ameze Belo-Osagie, and I’m an interview editor for the Africa Policy Journal at the Harvard Kennedy School. Memme Onwudiwe: My name is Memme Onwudiwe, and I’m senior interview editor for […]

Social media has indeed amplified, but still simply carried on, the tradition of American politics that favors appearances over reality.

In their first debates on June 26 and 27, twenty candidates made the case for why they should be the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee. The candidates highlighted a number of tangible and compelling reasons, including their prior records in government, their well-conceived policy solutions, and their electability. But, while pedigree and experience are important predictors […]

America’s teachers deserve a pay raise and Kamala Harris wants to give it to them. Outing yourself as a teacher to new acquaintances is often met with responses typically reserved for those in the military: “Thank you for your service.” Or: “Your work makes a difference.” We are not war heroes, but teachers do provide […]

Congress is polarized. So polarized, in fact, that one would have to go all the way back to the Reconstruction era to find a similar level of discord. But perhaps more surprising is that while Congress has become more polarized, the American public has not: its dispersion of views has remained generally stable for decades. […]

In September 2008, I was a young man who had just finished a bachelor’s degree in economics and was hoping to serve my country as an official in the Nicaraguan public sector, by then governed by an administration that had embarked on a process that would culminate in the dismantling of the democratic institutions of […]

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump ran under the slogan “Make America Great Again”. Although the first three words of the slogan were uncontroversial, the last one – “Again” – led many observers to wonder what bygone era Trump was referencing. His harshest critics claimed that he was referring to a time when racism […]

Democrats should ditch commit-to-vote (CTV) pledges for vote tripling pledges.  Instead of asking Democrats to commit to vote, campaigns should ask them to pledge to get three friends to vote. Relative to commit-to-vote (CTV) pledges, new evidence suggests voters like ‘vote tripling’ pledges more and that these pledges more effectively increase voter turnout. Last year, […]

In 2000, during a presidential debate, then-candidate George W. Bush mispronounced the internet as “internets.” Four years later, he repeated this error in a debate with John Kerry (“I hear there’s rumors on the, uh, internets that we’re going to have a draft.”). This clearly was no mere mistake. And the internets responded—making this Bushism […]