Kennedy School Review
Established in 1999, the mission of the Harvard Kennedy School Review (KSR) was to publish articles that offer compelling analysis and insight and put forward pragmatic and innovative solutions for the major issues of our time. KSR sought to publish timely, provocative, important articles that influence policymakers and practitioners, stimulate public debate, and showcase the best work of Kennedy School students. KSR provided an opportunity for students to challenge, change, and influence the policy debate on crucial policy issues.
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Goodbye Climate Change, Goodbye Global Poverty?
05.16.15
BY PAUL ADLER This piece is cross-posted from Pangyrus, Boston’s new journal of literature, perspective, arts, and politics. In September 1969, Nixon administration counsellor Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote a prescient memorandum about the rising carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere. Although noting the need for more scientific research to understand this trend, Moynihan felt confident […]
The War at Home: Baltimore
05.15.15
BY SEBASTIAN JOHNSON This piece is cross-posted from Pangyrus, Boston’s new journal of literature, perspective, arts, and politics. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude – except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted – shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. –13th Amendment to the […]
The Digital Gender Gap: Unleashing the Value of the Internet for Women
04.30.15
BY MIA MITCHELL Today, four billion people, or two-thirds of the planet, are offline, but that is rapidly changing. Momentum is building among private, public, and non-profit actors to expand Internet access globally. From Facebook’s Internet.org to the Alliance for Affordable Internet to Oluvus, numerous projects have launched in recent years with the shared goal […]
The Return of the Crypto Wars
03.12.15
BY HUGO ZYLBERBERG General Keith Alexander maintained in a 2013 speech that, as director of the National Security Agency (NSA) at the time, he was doing “everything [he] could to protect civil liberties and privacy,” then added a warning: “Everyone also understands that if we give up a capability that is critical to the defense […]
Preventing Unilateral Actions: How to Exercise Preemptive Self-defense within the Scope of International Law
03.5.15
BY YASIR GOKCE The United States has been employing preemptive self-defense as a justification for use of force as it carries out its war on terror. Preemptive use of force became a national security strategy under the Bush administration following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. As part of this strategy, there have been many instances […]
This Valentine’s Day: Show your Love, No Chains Attached
02.12.15
BY CAITLIN RYAN How will Americans say “I love you” this Valentine’s Day? Through $18.9 billion in gifts to our darlings, according to the National Retail Federation. Over half of us will purchase candy, including an estimated 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. Yet as we hand our honeys that box of tasty morsels, do […]
U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2016: The Most Accomplished (and Diverse) Class in History
02.5.15
BY DAVEDE ALEXANDER and JUSTIN OSSOLA America has been made very aware of the difficult, polarizing dynamics that can exist when the social experience of leadership and authority skews so drastically from those being served. Tinderbox situations between communities and law enforcement – such as that in Ferguson and, to a lesser extent, the current […]
Preventing Crashes: Lessons for the SEC from the Airline Industry
01.6.15
BY CHRIS CLEARFIELD, ANDRÁS TILCSIK, BENJAMIN BERMAN A small error on August 1, 2012 nearly bankrupted the Knight Capital Group. Code from a discontinued software component was accidentally reused after nine years, and in just 45 minutes Knight’s automated order router had flooded the market with millions of unintended orders. Knight lost $460 million when […]
Is It Only Doom and Gloom? Demography and the Future of Millennials
12.18.14
BY TOBIAS PETER In the developed world, parents have come to expect that living standards will rise for their children. A recent poll, however, reveals disturbingly low percentages of people living in developed countries who believe this will be true for millennials, the generation born between the early 1980s and early 2000s. Especially striking is […]
The Criminal Justice System Is Not Broken, It’s Doing Exactly What It’s Meant To Do
12.5.14
Given the criminal justice system’s racist history, the failures of grand juries to indict Officer Darren Wilson and Officer Daniel Pantaleo are unsurprising and show the need for dismantling, not reforming. BY REETU MODY First a St. Louis grand jury failed to find enough evidence to indict Officer Darren Wilson for firing six shots that […]
No More Guessing: the South China Sea and Strategic Clarity
12.4.14
BY DEREK PHAM While strategic ambiguity has been a significant instrument of US defense strategy in the Asia-Pacific, emerging regional threats and power imbalances have made this strategy increasingly difficult to justify. Strategic ambiguity insulates us from hard commitments in regional conflicts not directly related to our interests and exacerbates China’s uncertainty about our motivations. […]
Midterm Election Analysis: Making Sense of the Political Commentary
11.14.14
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 […]