election

Indonesia takes pride in its national motto ‘unity in diversity.’ For its ethnic Chinese minorities, however, this phrase rings hollow.

As Zimbabwe heads to the polls in April 2023, spokesperson for the opposition Citizen Coalition for Change, Fadzayi Mahere, has stated that it is time for the youth to take over the mantle of leadership in the country. Mahere was speaking during an interview with Africa Policy Journal in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There are more than […]

In 2008, freshman Senator Barack Obama defied the odds to win the Democratic nomination for president against former first lady and two-term Senator Hillary Clinton. When the time came for Obama to select his vice presidential candidate, it was speculated he would choose Clinton. Choosing a former competitor who came runner up in the primary […]

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 […]

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. […]

BY MICHAEL AUSLEN Indiana is hardly the poster child for voting rights. In 2005, it became the first state in the country to pass a strict photo identification (ID) requirement for voting—a measure criticized as an unfair barrier to participation for poor and minority communities.[1] When the US Supreme Court refused to throw out the […]

BY DANIELA PHILIPSON In 2017, the average proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments was barely above 23% (World Bank). In Latin America this proportion is a little higher at 29%. While the representation of women in legislative bodies around the world is not predicted by GDP per capita or any other economic […]

BY SAGAR DESHPANDE and KEN INSLEY The United States of America is the oldest continuous democracy in the world, but despite the storied history of our government, American civic participation remains abysmally low. Americans feel so disconnected from their political system that during mid-term elections, the majority are not participants in their own democracy.  In most states, only about a third of […]

BY ROBERT REYNOLDS In 1840, Abraham Lincoln authored a plan for the Whig party to win the upcoming election: “watch on the doubtful voters, and from time to time have them talked to by those in whom they have the most confidence.” Democrats need a similar plan today. If liberals and conservatives voted at the […]

BY JULIETTE KEELEY April 23 is a dreary, drizzly New England day. People are lining up alongside the Lycée Francais de Cambridge at 8 a.m. They commiserate over the long line as they wait to cast their ballots in the first round of the French presidential election. This polling location is the only one for […]

BY PATRICK WHITE ‘Crush the saboteurs’ proclaimed the Daily Mail newspaper as Prime Minister Theresa May announced that for the fourth time in four years a major national poll would take place in the UK this summer. My concern is that rhetoric like this will only serve to widen further divisions in British society. The […]

Kuwait’s opposition notched a major victory in parliamentary elections held on November 26, winning around half of the National Assembly’s 50 elected seats. Though polls were originally scheduled for June 2017, Kuwaiti Emir Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah dissolved the legislature on October 16 after the government was unable to make headway in passing subsidy reforms – even […]