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Government & Politics
Speaking up for science
National & World Affairs
By: Alvin Powell/
May 17, 2013
In honor of its 30th anniversary, the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government brought together heavy hitters in economics and government to discuss how private and public leaders can help the United States thrive again.
Jon Favreau, who recently stepped down after several years as President Obama’s head speechwriter, took a Harvard Kennedy School audience on a behind-the-scenes tour of the president’s best-known addresses.
U.S. Rep. Eric I. Cantor, the House majority leader, embraced immigration reform, education changes, and medical research funding during a speech at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Crunching data in the campaign cave
During an appearance on campus, Michelangelo D’Agostino explained how he worked to mine fundraising data, helping President Barack Obama win re-election.
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With the sequester closing in, the Gazette asked Harvard analysts to weigh in on how the dramatic spending cuts might affect the economy, politics, and the funding of research universities.
Gazette staff writer Colleen Walsh spoke with budgeting expert Linda J. Bilmes, a Harvard Kennedy School senior lecturer in public policy, about the looming government sequestration, and some possible ways to avoid it in future.
After Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, Harvard College students at the Institute of Politics watch party offered their first impressions of President Obama’s second-term agenda.
Republicans must accept a broader definition of their party, finding a way to embrace young voters, women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and environmentalists, if they are to avoid repeating the losses of the 2012 election, panelists at an Institute of Politics forum said.
Advancing America’s economic competitiveness should be a top priority for elected leaders, Harvard Business School professors Michael E. Porter and Jan W. Rivkin told a group of new members of Congress attending a weeklong Harvard Kennedy School crash course on the policy issues they’ll face in Washington.
Truth, values, in a reviving America
With a bitter national election fading in the rearview mirror, Harvard scholars look ahead and strike an optimistic chord, suggesting the nation can meet the many serious challenges facing it.
Two political philosophers from opposite sides of the fence met at the Tsai Center to size up the factors in play during the recent presidential election, and the weight that they could take on in 2016.
What history gives the present
Eight Harvard historians gathered at Emerson Hall with an ambitious goal in mind: to explain — in eight minutes or less — apiece — that “everything is history and history is everything.”
Tuesday night’s national elections sent a number of Harvard alumni and affiliates off to Washington.
Election reflection by Dukakis
In a wide-ranging talk at Harvard, Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic candidate for president, discussed the 2012 presidential election and the challenges facing the nation.
Many people believe that idealism motivates them to open their wallets for a favorite candidate or that civic duty motivates them to vote. But don’t discount peer pressure as a factor in elections, a political scientist says.
Offering both a historic and contemporary perspective on the current election, several Harvard faculty members reflected on how themes from America’s past are playing out on the national stage.
The making of a stellar president
For all of their differences, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney share an important quality: their outsider status as politicians. But as Harvard Business School’s Gautam Mukunda argues in a new book, the very trait that makes them likely to be high-impact leaders also makes them unpredictable.
Four Harvard experts — on voice, movement, public speaking, and trial law — critique the last presidential debate and offer the candidates their tips for the next matchup.
Health care could swing voters
A new analysis of 37 national opinion polls conducted by 17 survey organizations finds that health care is the second most important issue for likely voters in deciding their 2012 presidential vote. This is the highest that health care has been ranked as a presidential election issue since 1992.
Veteran political strategists weighed in on the blood, sweat, and tears that go into prepping a presidential candidate, during a Harvard Kennedy School watch party for the first presidential debate. The vice presidential debate is 9-10 p.m. Oct. 11 from Centre College, Danville, Ky. The second presidential debate is 9-10:30 p.m. Oct. 16, Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.
Inside-out look at election 2012
Hosted by the Nieman Foundation, a panel of political journalists shared their insights with Harvard faculty members, including their predictions about the outcome in the race for the White House.
Should citizens have to show photo identification to vote? In recent years, many states have decided they do. A group of panelists debated the hotly partisan issue — and the possible implications for poor and elderly voters — at Harvard Kennedy School.
Super PAC App, the brainchild of recent Harvard Kennedy School graduate Jennifer Hollett and her MIT classmate, gives voters information on the big-money donors behind this season’s campaign ads in real time.
Balky states likely to join Medicaid expansion
Experts speaking at The Forum at Harvard School of Public Health discussed the health care reform law Friday, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld most of its core but struck down drastic penalties for states that don’t participate in a major expansion of Medicaid.
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