This article will appear in the forthcoming Spring 2020 edition of the Latin America Policy Journal to be released in April 2020. The original version of the article can be seen here. Latin America has faced significant challenges and has always found ways to get ahead. The potential of Latin American countries is great and […]

Hezekiah Shobiye. Hez is the Lead Publication Editor at the Africa Policy Journal. He is an MPA 2020 Candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and holds a Doctorate in Public Health from Boston University.  I am worried about Africa’s preparedness for the COVID-19 outbreak, and so should everybody else. As at the beginning of […]

Photo Credit: Kristina B Amid the eerie silence that is our new normal in the time of coronavirus, there is one sound I long to hear: bagpipes. The last day of our mid-career MPA summer program was a hot summer day in August, and our cohort had gathered in the Forum. “This is your time,” […]

What happens to citizenship when crisis disrupts the state’s ability to fulfil its obligations to its citizens, or when citizens find themselves unable to depend on their states for a meaningful guarantee of protection in times of need? Using the emergent COVID-19 pandemic as a lens, Theophilus Kwek considers how states, including Singapore, can do better in caring equally for their citizens – and how citizens can also support each other.

China’s entanglement in the domestic politics of other countries has resulted in rising anti-Chinese sentiments, especially during times when countries hold elections. Given its timeliness, politicians have used people’s frustration with China’s exploitation of their nation as a talking point to gain electoral support. Anti-Chinese sentiments can be attributed to several factors that include investment, […]

Photo Credit: Canadian Blood Services How we can all support the healthcare system through this crisis In surgical residency, I find that after 2:00am I tended to have less patience. Sipping lukewarm coffee, I click the refresh button on the screen more often than was probably reasonable, hoping the results will appear. In these early […]

Nearly as soon as the announcements began that many college classes were going to be moving from in-person to online for the rest of the semester to increase social distancing and ideally lessen the spread of COVID-19, the tweets, memes and social media posts began. The student variety poked fun at teachers clumsy with technology. […]

Today, the first day of spring break, was always going to be a change from our HKS routines – whether we were going home to family, across the world on treks, or enjoying a “staycation” in Cambridge.  But over the past week, COVID-19 has changed our lives drastically, in ways we could have scarcely imagined.  […]

Author: Elizabeth Zwart   Robyn Ochs is an educator, speaker, grassroots activist, writer, and editor of Bi Women Quarterly. She has served on the board of MassEquality, and on the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth. She was named by Teen Vogue as one of “9 Bisexual Women Who are Making History,” and she was chosen to represent Massachusetts on the Advocate’s […]

Djosa, a member of the Custodial staff at the Kennedy School, is a former government official from Cape Verde, a star footballer and sports fan, married to Gilda who works in the cafeteria, and possibly the friendliest face at HKS.  Can you tell us about yourself? I’m from Cape Verde. I came to America in […]

In Singapore, foreign domestic workers (FDWs) on Work Permits are subject to various bio-political restrictions: namely, restrictions that govern who they can marry and whether they can be pregnant.

What explains these restrictions, and why is the state so invested in policing the private intimacies of foreign domestic workers? Poh Yong Han traces through parliamentary debates and newspaper articles to show how these restrictions are informed by a neoliberal philosophy that informs how we view citizenship, and unpacks its consequences.

  Ellie,[1] a young trans woman from Central America, sits across a small table from me in blue men’s scrubs, hair cut short and eyes downcast. It’s taken hours to shuffle her from the solitary confinement unit to this cold, windowless room, where I am to help her prepare her pro se asylum case. She’s […]