By Theda Skocpol, James Madison Lecture | American Political Science Association, September 6, 2024 I am greatly honored by receipt of the James Madison Award and thankful for this opportunity to engage with so many thoughtful colleagues. From the moment I was notified, I realized the Award is not just a passive honor; it requires…Continue Reading Rising threats to US Democracy – Roots and Responses
By Jill Lepore, The New Yorker, November 4, 2024 “Jacob Javits of New York is the first United States senator to become fully automated,” the Chicago Tribune announced in 1962 from the Republican state convention in Buffalo, where an electronic Javits spat out slips of paper with answers to questions about everything from Cuba’s missiles (“a serious…Continue Reading The Artificial State
By Christy DeSmith, Harvard Gazette, November 1, 2024 With another presidential election at America’s doorstep, Lawrence D. Bobo, the dean of Social Science, last week gathered four of his division’s faculty members — Mina Cikara, Jill Lepore, Eric Nelson, and Theda Skocpol — to discuss the state of the U.S. political system. “We don’t have enough…Continue Reading Social Science faculty lend insight, analysis ahead of election
By Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, New York Times, October 24, 2024 Democratic self-rule contains a paradox. It is a system premised on openness and competition. Any ambitious party or politician should have a shot at running for office and winning. But what if a major candidate seeks to dismantle that very system? America confronts…Continue Reading There Are Four Anti-Trump Pathways We Failed to Take. There Is a Fifth.
By Lawrence Bobo, Contributing Opinion Writer, Harvard Crimson, May 7, 2024. For many of us faculty members, these past few months have culminated in a series of superlative highs, wrought with a flurry of seemingly endless lows. We’ve endured the whipsaw experience of the great hopes for Claudine Gay’s presidency, fierce controversy on how to…Continue Reading Why Harvard Faculty Should Reject a Faculty Senate
By Christy DeSmith, Harvard Staff Writer, Harvard Gazette, April 22, 2024. A new study reveals the secret world of lawyers who earn top dollar lobbying government regulators. “Most people think of lobbying as something that happens in Congress,” said political scientist Daniel Carpenter, the Allie S. Freed Professor of Government and chair of the Department of…Continue Reading Lawyers reap big profits lobbying government regulators under the radar
By Christy DeSmith, Harvard Staff Writer, Harvard Gazette, March 21, 2024. A recent working paper charts the surprising politics of zero-sum thinking — or the belief that one individual or group’s gain is another’s loss — with a goal of offering fresh insight into our nation’s schisms. The buzzworthy paper was co-authored by Stefanie Stantcheva, the Nathaniel Ropes…Continue Reading Why are we so divided? Zero-sum thinking is part of it.
By Christy DeSmith, Harvard Staff Writer, Harvard Gazette, March 14, 2024. A group of real estate developers pitched Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07, J.D. ’12, early last year on the creation of incentives for building more housing in a time of high labor costs and interest rates. Like most coastal cities, Boston is gripped by…Continue Reading Lending a hand to a former student — Boston’s mayor
by Max J. Krupnick, Harvard Magazine, January-February, 2024 Most American school children learn about one Southern bus ride—on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, when Rosa Parks declined to cede her seat in the white section to a white man. Her refusal and ensuing arrest sparked the yearlong Montgomery bus boycott and catalyzed the civil rights…Continue Reading Break Every Chain: How black plaintiffs in the Jim Crow South sought justice
by Sarah Lewis, for the Washington Post, January 14, 2024 Sarah Lewis is the John L. Loeb associate professor of the humanities and associate professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, and the author of the forthcoming book “The Unseen Truth: How Race Changed Sight in America.” On March 31, 1968, days…Continue Reading Opinion: How we learn to see history: A case study at the National Cathedral
