Media

Editor’s Note: Information for this article was obtained primarily from interviews by the authors. Names and identifying information have been withheld in some cases to protect the identity of the interviewees. In the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election, reports of Russian interference and accusations of biased news coverage gave rise to a renewed […]

Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the general elections in 2014, India’s media has precipitously fallen from grace. The media’s depreciation is intertwined with the rise of the BJP’s controversial Hindutva agenda. Hindutva, an ideology of the BJP and other right-wing groups in India, aims to establish Hindu hegemony in India. Under BJP rule, […]

Conversation with Jidenna: Music, Memory & The Black Atlantic This week the Harvard Africa Policy Journal and Harvard African Law Association hosted Jidenna at Harvard Law School. APJ Interview Editor Jacob Omorodion (JD ’20) sat down with Jidenna to discuss his latest album, the 85 to Africa Tour, the “Black Atlantic,” and transnational black identity.

Their symbol: a white headscarf. Their weapon: a list of names spoken aloud. Their mission: to keep the memory of their children, “disappeared” by the Argentine military junta four decades ago, alive in the memory of modern-day Argentina and beyond. The Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of May Plaza), many now in their 70s […]

Mistress to a married man: Not a bad idea!  Looking back, If anyone had told me that I would be impatiently watching every episode of Maîtresse d’un homme marié (Mistress to a Married Man) from my student apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I would have never believed it. Squeezed between a paper to write, a meeting […]

BY BEATRICE MARTINI Over the last decade, political and legislative bodies have started to codify the relationship between the Internet and human rights. In 2012, the Human Rights Council (HRC) of the United Nations adopted a resolution to protect the free speech of individuals on the Internet–the first UN resolution of its kind. In 2014, […]

BY DANIELA PHILIPSON GARCIA Alfonso Cuaron’s most recent film is named after one of Mexico City’s upper-class neighborhoods, Roma. For those who live abroad but call Mexico City home, watching the film is like taking a nostalgic trip to our past, uncovering buried memories. For me, it was a specific memory of when I lived […]

African states are increasingly leveraging the power of telecom operators to advance goals that the state itself struggles to secure (e.g. security and fiscal goals). This suggests a paradigmatic shift in African politics, whereby telecom operators have become a face of the state, exerting agency over state and citizen in pervasive and sometimes unexpected ways. […]

BY ERIN GREGOR Populism may have toppled the domino theory. On April 7, 1954, just before Vietnamese nationalists led by communist Ho Chi Minh won a decisive battle at Dien Bien Phu, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of countries falling like dominoes to communism. “You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over […]

BY TOBY VOGHT The British barrister Sir William Gallow famously coined the phrase “innocent until proven guilty” in the early nineteenth century.  The presumption of innocence quickly hopped the Atlantic and has been critical to the American pursuit of a more perfect judiciary. But the highly contentious nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh generated debate about […]

Crazy Rich Asians has shattered recent box office records. The film grossed an estimated $117 million in its first three weeks and features an all Asian cast — something that hasn’t happened since The Joy Luck Club debuted in 1993. It has also ignited a firestorm of Asian American pride and public discourse. The story […]

BY BEN MCGUIRE After a bruising 2016 election, a cascade of Democratic victories has given progressive activists reason to hope for future elections, and the use of new mobilization and engagement technologies in those campaigns is getting a lot of attention. Virginia Republicans barely held their gerrymandered majority after grassroots volunteers across the left powered […]