Category: Research Spotlight

Dept of Government at Harvard Office

Discriminatory Clubs: The Geopolitics of International Organizations

graphic of 8 multicolored flags on cream background

Christina L. Davis examines the discriminatory logic at the heart of multilateralism. Overview Member selection is one of the defining elements of social organization, imposing categories on who we are and what we do. Discriminatory Clubs shows how international organizations are like social clubs, ones in which institutional rules and informal practices enable states to favor friends…

Race and Inequality in American Politics: An Imperfect Union

Authored by three of the USA’s most well-known scholars on American politics – Zoltan L. Hajnal, University of California, Vincent L. Hutchings, University of Michigan, and Taeku Lee, Harvard University – this undergraduate textbook argues that racial considerations are today – and have always been since the nation’s founding – central to understanding America’s political system writ large….

Race/Class Conflict and Urban Financial Threat

Race and class inequality are at the crux of many policy disputes in American cities. But are they the only factors driving political discord? In Race/Class Conflict and Urban Financial Threat, political scientist Jennifer L. Hochschild examines significant policies in four major American cities to determine when race and class shape city politics, when they do not,…

Democrats wrongly assume only Trump’s words alienate Latinos

Marcel Roman, Assistant Professor of Government, has co-authored an article for The Washington Post with Amanda Sahar d’Urso, an assistant professor at Georgetown University’s Department of Government. The piece explains how “Critics of the term “Latinx” argue that only 4 percent of Hispanics use it because most are offended by how it anglicizes Spanish or signals elitism. Our research shows…

What We Owe to Ukrainians

Sophia Anastazievsky headshot

Ph.D. Candidate Sophia Anastazievsky has published an article in Ethics & International Affairs, titled “What We Owe to Ukrainians: A Moral Perspective on Nuclear Coercion and Military Intervention”. The piece discusses the moral obligations to intervene militarily in Ukraine to stop Russian human rights abuses and ensure that Ukraine achieves a military victory. Sophia argues that “Ukraine’s…

Steven Levitsky & Daniel Ziblatt publish op ed in NYT

NYT image

Steven Levitsky, David Rockefeller Professor of Latin American Studies, and Daniel Ziblatt, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, have published an op ed in the New York Times titled “There Are Four Anti-Trump Pathways We Failed to Take. There Is a Fifth.” The piece, which in itself has received much commentary, tackles the topic of authoritarianism…

There’s a Better Way for Mexico to Elect Its Judges

María Ballesteros, Ph.D. candidate and a Minerva/USIP peace scholar fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, and Andrew O’Donohue, Ph.D. candidate and the Carl J. Friedrich fellow, have published a new article in Foreign Policy. On Sunday, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador signed into law a contentious slate of constitutional amendments aimed at overhauling the country’s…

How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces Matter in an Age of Nationalized Politics

Stephanie Ternullo book cover titled How The Heartland Went Red

Stephanie Ternullo’s first book helps us understand why white voters in America’s heartland are shifting to the right. Overview Over the past several decades, predominantly White, postindustrial cities in America’s agriculture and manufacturing center have flipped from blue to red. Cities that were once part of the traditional Democratic New Deal coalition began to vote…

Study published during Harvard Climate Action Week

A new study – led by Stephen Ansolabehere, the Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government – has launched as part of Harvard Climate Action Week (June 10-14), hosted by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability. The conference invites climate experts, leaders, and stakeholders to come together and explore solutions to the climate crisis’s most…