policy

This piece was published in the 27th print volume of the Asian American Policy Review. Despite its dubious reputation, lobbying has evolved into a platform for minority interest groups to voice their concerns. By leveraging this “fourth branch of government,” racially affiliated minority interest groups directly appeal and advocate to members of Congress. Organizations like the […]

When it comes to climate change and its impact on U.S. Latinos, the facts usually tell a bleak story full of bad news and mounting threats. While there’s no question that climate impacts are real and growing, and that Latinos are on the front lines of those adverse impacts, the story doesn’t have to end […]

BY MARYROSE MAZZOLA “Two police officers, a court advocate, and a social worker walk into a room,” might sound like the beginning of a bad joke, but in Edinburgh, Scotland, it’s a new policy norm. This is what’s known as a MARAC (Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Committee) meeting. Here, up to a dozen domestic abuse service […]

BY HAYLING PRICE Last fall, I had the opportunity to invite a hero to Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership (CPL). While CPL often features celebrities, dignitaries, and heads of state, resident students rarely hear from community-based practitioners grappling with the poverty we tend to engage with in the abstract. Steve Gates has spent years leading […]

Wading into the Debate BY DANIEL R. BOWLES When Rex’s mother passed away, he was lost. Just eighteen years old and only six days past his high school graduation, he had nowhere to stay and no good prospects for employment. He spent the next three years out of work. Without any real direction in life, […]

  BY JOSH RUDOLPH The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. – John Maynard Keynes Friday afternoons tend to be subdued affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. But the afternoon […]

BY CROSBY BURNS A preliminary version of this post originally appeared on the Ash Center’s Challenges to Democracy blog Last year the City of Boston unveiled its plans to devote a portion of its capital budget towards a participatory budget, a social innovation that aims to reimagine citizen engagement, the appropriations process, and democratic participation. […]

BY VIRIDIANA RIOS, PH.D While the emergence of civilian self-defense groups in Mexico has gained the most attention as a strategy to fight drug cartels, the most profound change in that country’s security strategy has largely passed unnoticed. Early on 2014, Mexico approved an entirely new national code of judicial procedures that will transform the […]

BY DENISE LINN Recently, while we’ve all been busy binge-watching House of Cards, our cable companies and online content providers have been splashed across the headlines. The announced $45 billion Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger and the Netflix-Comcast deal have flooded the Internet with articles about pricing, speed, and customer satisfaction. While sources have speculated about […]

BY RORY GERBERG As a female graduate student at the Kennedy School, I use Boston’s public transportation system. Last Wednesday, I wore a skirt. You might ask, was it long or short, loose or tight? Would my answer impact my rights? I consented to wearing an article of clothing and to boarding a bus, not […]

Climate change is transforming the circulation patterns which bring us our weather, but do journalists have enough scientific understanding to tell us what’s going on? BY MEGAN ALBON 2014 was the year a polar vortex came to town, wreaking wintery havoc for months on end. Reporters were quickly on its tail. “Trapped in a ‘polar […]

A Note of Explanation: For the first time, the Kennedy School Review has tapped into the policy expertise of students across the Harvard Kennedy School of Government to collect their perspectives on President Obama’s 2014 State of the Union Address. Over the next two days we will share student analysis on a broad range of […]