Kennedy School Review

In September 2015, a mob attacked and killed a 52-year-old Muslim man, Mohammad Akhlaq, pulling him out of his home in a village near Delhi, India, on suspicions of eating beef. Not only did Prime Minister Narendra Modi remain silent following the attack, but some politicians of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) defended the […]

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. […]

A proposal to provide free public access to legal information through a federally managed web portal. You cannot Google the law—the United States has essentially privatized access to much of written law. This privatization has created an infamous industry that drives up legal costs and prevents many citizens from accessing important legal information. We need […]

In 1993, women represented only 1% of all UN uniformed personnel deployed in peacekeeping missions. In 2017, women peacekeepers remained at 4%, far from the UN target of 15%. The role of women in peacekeeping operations (PKOs)—not only as a matter of principle, but as a necessary condition for their success—has only become widely accepted […]

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 in the neighborhood of […]

A new administration is at the vanguard of African leadership, prioritizing national development in a new model of partnership and possibility Sierra Leone has adopted a new strategy that is reforming its troubled past, piece by piece. Less than a year into his term, President Julius Maada Bio is leading his country in a novel […]

Most statisticians will only ever light up the Twittersphere in their wildest dreams. But for census staff at the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), those dreams became a nightmarish reality as the country’s first digital census bombed spectacularly, earning its own hashtag, #censusfail. Every five years, Australians sit down on a designated ‘census night’ and […]

A Q&A with Esperanza Guevara of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights In March 2018, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose department administers the decennial United States census, announced he would include a question on the 2020 Census asking, for the first time since 1950: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?” The question […]

The U.S. Census Bureau is facing a series of challenges this time around – insufficient funding, a new online component, and an administration that is unwelcoming to diversity. In particular, the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress have become the newest members of the mole brigade – politicians determined to avoid seeing the world as […]

Every U.S. census faces challenges and controversies; counting a mobile, growing, and increasingly diverse “nation of immigrants” — not to mention a displaced Native population and enslaved peoples at various points in our history — was always destined to be a complex, imperfect effort. Fortunately, the census has gotten more accurate over the decades, and […]

The U.S. Census is entering the digital age. If you can order groceries online and find the love of your life, why not fill out an online survey that promotes the health of our democracy? Foregoing the traditional paper and pencil mode of data collection makes sense, as it is no longer a sustainable method. […]

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all […]