Progressive Policy Review

The Progressive Policy Review (PPR) was a student-run publication dedicated to racial, social, environmental, and economic justice for all through transformative policy change and popular mass movements. PPR contributed to these efforts through scholarship, commentary, and creative media on injustices worldwide and the policies best suited to addressing them equitably, sustainably, and justly. PPR provided an inclusive platform to discuss progressive solutions to current crises.

Explore all Articles

filter by–Topic

filter by–Region

filter by–Country

search by–Keyword

Backlit firefighters battle a large fire with hoses.

How the Climate Crisis Compounds Risks for Incarcerated Workers

10.26.22

A version of this article was originally published in August 2021 on Climate XChange’s “Intersection” blog. PPR thanks Climate XChange for their permission to reprint it here. The summer of 2021 was marked by a series of climate-fueled disasters: heat waves with disastrous consequences, dramatic rainfall and intense thunderstorms, an earlier and potentially more destructive […]

COVID-19 Policy-making Failed U.S. Workers: Labor organizing can deliver where legislators have stalled

07.5.22

The pandemic prompted many to think about how work shapes our own lives. It also highlighted how reliant we all are on the labor of others. While higher paid workers transitioned to remote work, others had little choice but to continue going to their jobs in person. These workers exposed themselves and their families to […]

Flag of Barbados with a blue sky background and scattered white clouds

Republicanism is just the first step. True independence for Barbados demands transformative change.

06.20.22

On 30th November 2021, Barbados became a republic. Nearly 400 years after the first British ship arrived on the island, and exactly 55 years after independence from British colonial rule, Prime Minister Mia Mottley conducted a ceremony replacing Queen Elizabeth II with Dame Sandra Mason as the head of state. Bells chimed across the capital, […]

Credits to José Cícero Silva/Agência Pública (via GRAIN).

Harvard stole farmland in Brazil for years. Now they’re trying to walk away. The communities they’ve harmed deserve justice.

04.26.22

Palmerina Ferreira Lima was a small-scale farmer in the Brazilian Cerrado, until her land was stolen. At the age of 77, she watched a company put up fences to keep her out and build a massive industrial soy plantation. In the decade since they seized her and her neighbors’ property, the project has nearly dried […]

Fairness and Justice
A photo of the Texas Statehouse

Regardless of Roe: How the Texas GOP Perfected the Anti-Abortion Playbook

02.16.22

Texas serves as a model for making abortion nearly unattainable, even while constitutionally protected. The fight for safe and legal abortion cannot end at SB8, nor can it end at keeping Roe intact in its current form. It has to go further.

Several Red Line trains wait on the tracks with the Boston skyline in the background.

How Mayor Michelle Wu Can Put Racial Equity in the Fast Lane

11.24.21

While the Mayor doesn’t control the MBTA directly, she can make Boston’s transit system more equitable from day one. Jonathan Timm outlines four strategies for advancing racial equity in Boston’s public transit system.

Gender, Race and Identity

Open Letter: Against the Sale of U.S. Arms to Saudi Arabia

11.22.21

As a candidate, Joe Biden promised a values-based U.S. foreign policy towards Saudi Arabia. Less than a year into his presidency, Biden’s administration has abandoned that promise by resuming arms sales to Saudi Arabia, justifying the decision by saying the weapons do not support Saudi “offensive operations.”

Narrowing the Divide: Addressing Inequities in California’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure

08.28.21

Abstract: Electric Vehicles (EVs) provide environmental benefits to society while simultaneously providing direct health and financial benefits to drivers who adopt them. While California’s progressive state policies have accelerated EV adoption, historic bias continues to be embedded in California’s “CALGreen” building code — effectively delivering the most benefits of EV driving to already-affluent single-family homeowners, […]

Syria Needs Cross-Border Aid. Washington Needs Focus.

07.2.21

The war in Syria continues to constitute one of the most complex contexts in the Middle East today, with few realistic policy solutions available to end the conflict. That said, the upcoming July 10 debate over the renewal of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2533 (UNSCR 2533) concerning cross-border humanitarian aid marks a flashpoint that […]

The Dehumanizing Discourse of Resilience

05.28.21

Malaka Shwaikh argues that the discourse of resilience is dehumanizing in how it imposes mythical terms on the colonized people worldwide. It deals with them as if they have supernatural ‘coping mechanisms,’ romanticizes them as exemplary in ‘enduring’ everything, obscures their humanity, reduces the depravity of colonial violence, and ignores layers of structural violence they continue to face.

Healthcare

LOOKING INSIDE: Portraits of Women Serving Life Sentences

05.25.21

Sara Bennett photographed 20 women in New York state prisons who are serving life sentences. In this excerpt from her project, five women write about the impact COVID-19 has had on them.

The United States is Complicit in the Ethnic Cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah

05.10.21

Decades of impunity for Israel have progressives at a crossroad. What are progressive elected officials willing to do to counter settler colonialism? Anything less than using the full arsenal available to them is complicity.

Call for Submissions


Join the HKS Student Policy Review—

to research, write, and learn about policy in a new way. We offer Harvard students an opportunity to engage with the most important policy issues of our time, across a whole range of topics and regions.