Featured series 
Tag: Government
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Campus & Community
Ten honorary degrees awarded at Commencement
Harvard University has conferred today (June 4) honorary degrees on 10 outstanding individuals: Energy Secretary Steven Chu, filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, author Joan Didion, religious historian Wendy Doniger, legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin, immunologist Anthony S. Fauci, anthropologist Sarah Hrdy, engineer Robert Langer, musician Wynton Marsalis, and political scientist Sidney Verba.
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Nation & World
Talking terror
The two men sit close, knees almost touching, in a mud-walled hut in the Congolese village of Katokota.
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Science & Tech
Scholar makes robots that detect land mines
On Oct. 10, 2005 — he remembers the date exactly — Thrishantha Nanayakkara was driving down a country road, headed for a science workshop at Jaffna Central College, a high school in the far north of Sri Lanka. The event was designed to distract potential child soldiers from the allure of war.
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Campus & Community
Ash Institute’s finalists for its Innovations award
The Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS) has announced the finalists for the 2009 Innovations in American Government Awards.
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Science & Tech
Looking at ‘spoiled’ Americans through an energy lens
In 1968, the United States was exporting oil. A decade later, given massive increases in domestic demand, it was importing half of this coveted fuel.
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Nation & World
Religion key to foreign policy, says HKS speaker
As President Obama and his new administration seek to redirect U.S. foreign policy back toward more emphasis on diplomacy and less on the use of force, they should not overlook Orthodox Christianity as a resource.
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Nation & World
‘Enormous changes’ in thirty years
In Chinese culture, the 60th birthday is an auspicious event. At that age, it is said that a person is at ease.
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Nation & World
Obama and the art of the possible
With the passing of Barack Obama’s 100th day in office, journalists and pundits are posing a simple but all-important question: How is the president doing? Robert Kuttner, author and political commentator, gave his own evaluation of the Obama presidency for the 2009 Lowell Lecture on April 30 in Emerson Hall.
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Arts & Culture
Locke: More enlightened than we thought
English political philosopher John Locke died nearly a century before the American Revolution, and in his time parliamentary democracy was in its infancy. But his Enlightenment ideas — including the right to life, liberty, and property — went on to inspire American revolutionaries.
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Nation & World
Experts talk about reducing crime through a holistic approach
Los Angeles is a city that many equate with violent gangs and an ineffectual and troubled police force. Yet recent years have seen a decline in gang homicides and violent crime due to a new approach in policing.
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Campus & Community
Samuel H. Beer, Harvard scholar, dies at 97
Samuel Hutchison Beer, the distinguished Harvard political scientist, died in his sleep at the age of 97 on April 7. For years, Beer was the world’s leading expert in British politics, but he also studied the American political system, and was active in American politics as a lifelong Democrat and chairman of Americans for Democratic…
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Health
Mogae shifts stress to HIV prevention
An African leader whose anti-AIDS programs resulted in one of the continent’s few HIV success stories said Monday (April 13) that he is shifting his efforts from treatment toward prevention in hopes of creating an “HIV-free” generation.
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Science & Tech
Energy policies: ‘Forty-year failure’
In 1973, four weeks after the Arab oil embargo, President Richard Nixon went on national television to talk about an energy crisis that had been mounting for two years. He asked Americans to turn off their Christmas lights.
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Nation & World
Frank calls for (re) regulation
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, came to the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Monday (April 6) to lay out a four-point program for re-regulating the nation’s financial system.
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Campus & Community
Blumenthal is national coordinator for health information technology
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced March 20 the selection of David Blumenthal as the Obama administration’s choice for national coordinator for health information technology.
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Health
Five named Early Career Scientists
Five Harvard researchers are among 50 young scientists nationwide who will have their work supported for the next six years by a new initiative from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
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Nation & World
Ash names Top 50 innovations in government
The Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) recently announced the top 50 programs of the 2009 Innovations in American Government Awards competition. The programs, which represent the best in government innovation from local, county, city, tribal, state, and federal levels, were selected from more than 600 applicants, and include…
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Nation & World
Finance scholar Chetty named professor of economics
Raj Chetty, a public economist whose work focuses on social insurance and tax policy, has been appointed professor of economics in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), effective April 1.
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Nation & World
HBS helps Jerusalem develop ‘competitive advantages’
The mayor of Jerusalem visited Harvard Thursday (March 26) and outlined a plan for his city’s economic future, one created with the help of Harvard Business School (HBS).
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Nation & World
Krook looks at how women fare in international political arena
This past Sunday (March 8) was International Women’s Day, now in its 99th year. And March is National Women’s History Month. So what better time for a scholarly look at how women are faring in the political arena? Mona Lena Krook did just that, outlining in a March 4 lecture at Radcliffe Gymnasium her years…
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Nation & World
Carter nominated to Pentagon post
President Barack Obama announced March 2 that he has nominated Ashton B. Carter to serve as undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. Carter’s nomination was announced in a press release along with several other key nominees.
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Nation & World
Looking at the world through a comparative lens
When Steven Levitsky talks politics, a boyish enthusiasm takes over. It’s hardly surprising. He fell in love with the topic at the age of 5.
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Nation & World
Taking on the ‘Godzilla Economy’
The president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas delivered a somber economic message Monday night (Feb. 23) during the annual Albert H. Gordon Lecture at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. But while Richard Fisher admitted that policymakers should have heeded the signs of financial stress long ago, he expressed hope that…
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Nation & World
Room for optimism after Gaza
A capacity crowd at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) this week (Feb. 11) got to see a scaled-down, toned-down version of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Instead of stones and rockets, words flew. Instead of despair, there was at least a glimmer of hope.
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Nation & World
Index offers abundance of data
To employ an analogy: If Somalia were to take a math test, the chaotic nation in the Horn of Africa would score a dismal 18.9 out of 100.
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Campus & Community
Kuwait Program research funds now available
The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) recently announced the spring 2009 funding cycle for the Kuwait Program Research Fund.
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Campus & Community
M-RCBG names spring fellows, scholars
A Korean Trade official, a member of the Northern Ireland civil service, a founder of AllWorld Network, and a British public policy scholar are among the incoming visitors being welcomed this spring at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS).
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Campus & Community
Kennedy School’s Ash Institute welcomes Asia Programs fellows
The Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) recently announced 11 new fellows for the spring 2009 term. As representatives from academic, government, and business sectors in Asia, the fellows will pursue independent research at the Ash Institute’s Asia Programs.