PolicyCast

HKS Mid-Career MPA Mason Fellow Fadumo Dayib recounts her story growing up as a Somali refugee and explains how her life’s experience has pushed her to mount a 2016 run for president in her homeland.

  HKS Professor Robert Putnam explains how the United States has become a class-segregated society with a growing stratification between the educated and uneducated. He describes how upward mobility has nearly vanished over the last few decades and what can be done to turn things around.

  Aneesh Chopra, a Walter Shorenstein Media and Democracy Fellow at the Shorenstein Center who served as the United States' first Chief Technology Officer, describes how the federal government, historically a leader in new technologies, fell behind in embracing innovation. He details the challenges government agencies have historically faced and how a combination of new policies and tech-savvy lea...

HKS Assistant Professor Maya Sen describes new research breaking down political leanings within the United States judiciary. The analyses exposes a partisan divide between lawyers and judges and finds a link between certain political leanings and specific law schools.

HKS Lecturer Jeffrey Seglin of the Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy discusses the ethical hot water Brian Williams has recently found himself in. He breaks down the reputational harm that has been done to both Williams and NBC, the steps NBC needs to take to restore its viewers’ faith and whether journalism and celebrity can coexist effectively.

HKS Lecturer Doug Johnson, Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, goes beyond the debate over the efficacy of torture to look at the consequences of its use in legal, military and international relations contexts.

HKS Professor Stephen Goldsmith, Director of the Data-Smart City Solutions Project at the Kennedy School’s Ash Center, describes how city and state governments can improve service to citizens by harnessing new technologies.

Ron Suskind’s world was shaken when his son Owen was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. Now, more than 20 years later, his experience has helped kick off new research into how we as a society can better integrate those with developmental disabilities. In this episode, Ron advocates for the establishment of new benchmarks for human ability and achievement and explains how policy can help or...

HKS Professor Asim Khwaja, Co-Director of the Evidence for Policy Design program, explains the benefits of bringing academics into the field to develop policy in collaboration with practitioners.

Professor Michael Ignatieff of the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy makes the case that increased transparency in government makes it harder for politicians to find compromise by relating his experience as the Leader of the Opposition in the Canadian parliament. He also laments the tendency to argue over the standing of those who make arguments on various issues, as opposed...

  HKS Lecturer Pippa Norris discusses her work on the Electoral Integrity Project, which assesses the veracity of elections around the globe and gives policy recommendations on how to ensure free and fair voting.

  HKS Associate Professor Moshik Temkin argues that the debate over civil rights in the United States, sparked by the unrest in Ferguson, MO, is actually a debate about human rights and the difference is not just semantic.

HKS Alumnus Bryan Stevenson has spent his career working to address issues of racial and wealth inequality in the United States’ justice system. He believes this inequality stems from a failure of the nation to reconcile its dark history with regard to slavery and Jim Crow. His work as Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative focuses on defending those without the means to properly defen...

IOP Fall 2014 Fellow Kristen Soltis Anderson gives her take on the gains the GOP made in the midterm elections, how the party can better target the youth vote and what we can expect from congress over the next two years.

Professor Mary Elise Sarotte, a visiting professor at the Harvard Center for European Studies and author of “Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall,” explains how the opening of the border between East and West Germany came down to a decision by a single border guard.

  Andrew McCawley, president and CEO of the New England Center for Homeless Veterans, describes the steps the organization is taking to combat homelessness among US veterans and how likely it is that the nation will see the complete eradication of veteran homelessness by 2016.

HKS Lecturer Steve Jarding, a longtime political operative who’s currently advising the Democratic candidate for US Senate in South Dakota, gives his take on how the upcoming midterm elections are shaping up. He explains the bipartisan lack of enthusiasm in this race, gives advice for struggling Democratic candidates and laments the increased role of money in the process.

Brian Worth, the Public Policy Lead for ridesharing service Uber, discusses how the company works with governments at all levels to tackle hackney regulations it sees as outdated. Worth participated in the Harvard Institute of Politics' 2014 Internet Policy Conference.

HKS Professor Calestous Juma, Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization project, believes that science and technology are critical to the future of food security. He talks about meeting the needs of a growing human population, using science to improve agricultural productivity, the controversy over genetically-modified crops, the need for more science advisors in emerging countries an...

In an interview conducted just a month after the horrific shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, Harvard Chan School of Public Health Professor David Hemenway makes an emphatic case for why gun violence needs to be researched through the lens of public health.