July 19, 2018 News from Brown
Public Policy concentrator Michael Fuller '19, shares his experience this summer participating in the first Brown in Tulsa Kaiser Fellowship Program.
July 17, 2018 Wilson Center
Anthony Levitas in The Wilson Center's Kennan Institute, "The fact that Ukraine’s constitution does not yet reflect the reality of governance throughout the country is troubling."
July 17, 2018 The Dan Yorke Show
Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar joined The Dan Yorke Show to discuss the 2018 Helsinki Summit, describing it as one of the worst days for a U.S. president in history.
July 17, 2018 Pass Blue
The WomenStats Project links the status of women to the security and behavior of countries, offering insights into women's lives all over the world. The database helped uphold a ban on polygyny in Canada when Professor Rose McDermott submitted empirical research that used WomenStats numbers to the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
July 12, 2018 The Providence Journal
An online survey of 1,000 people conducted by the Taubman Center showed that one in five distrust the federal government and that Democrats hold a nine-point lead heading into the midterm elections.
July 12, 2018 Quartz
Earlier this year, the U.S. tried to weaken a World Health Organization proposal encouraging the benefits of breastfeeding. Economist Emily Oster pointed out that it's "impossible to disentangle" the most commonly cited benefits of breastfeeding, such as higher IQ and lower obesity rates, from socioeconomic factors.
July 12, 2018 The Indian Express
Professor Ashutosh Varshney in The Indian Express, "A true meritocracy would place equally meritorious students from rural or urban settings, richer or poorer provinces, on an equal footing...China modifies the principle in the opposite direction. Its quota system gives preference to the privileged."
July 9, 2018 The Providence Journal
More female candidates than ever are running for political office in Rhode Island this year. Political scientist Wendy Schiller said the establishment party's endorsement controversy and recent pushback against pay equity, abortion rights and new sexual harassment laws has received stinging national media attention, and outrage among far-left-leaning voters could spur big wins for progressive candidates.
July 9, 2018 Deccan Chronicle
In an article on India's capital, Ashutosh Varshney, Director of the Center for Contemporary South Asia, calls the country an improbable democracy -- poor, impossibly heterogeneous and multicultural, and heavily reliant on its colonial history.
July 9, 2018 The Washington Post
Progressive political candidates motivated by Bernie Sanders' insurgent run against Hillary Clinton in 2016 are advocating for Medicare for all as part of their platforms. Professor Eric Patashnik said that the political viability of the idea will ultimately depend on its details -- such as whether the program would eliminate the private-insurance system altogether.
July 6, 2018 The Washington Times
Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer comments on Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and the widespread discontent with leadership in the Central American country.
July 5, 2018 The New York Times
The must-have accessory at the 2018 World Cup is the digital Fan ID, part identity card and part all-access pass. Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar says the Fan ID is "part of a surveillance economy where you are offered something that sounds enticing in exchange for valuable personal information."
July 3, 2018 The Washington Post
Professor Peter Andreas argues in a column penned on the eve of the Fourth of July that Americans should consider the fact that the U.S. founders were relentless lawbreakers -- particularly of laws meant to restrict who and what was allowed to cross borders.
June 28, 2018 TomDispatch.com
A new study by the Costs of War Project examines the relationship between the United States' war-related debt and societal inequality.
June 28, 2018 Dan Yorke State of Mind
Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar joined WPRI's Dan Yorke State of Mind to discuss the week's pressing security issues, including immigration policies, North Korea, and the Russian election meddling investigation.
June 25, 2018 The Washington Post
Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar in The Washington Post, "A warrant requirement dooms collection in bulk because mass surveillance programs involve billions or trillions of records."
June 25, 2018 The Boston Globe
Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, "The prospect that the United States would allow Hawaii to resume its place as an independent nation seems far-fetched."
June 25, 2018 Legal Talk Network
Senior Fellow Chas Freeman joins Legal Talk Network's Lawyer 2 Lawyer podcast to discuss the summit meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
June 22, 2018 The Providence Journal
Reviewer Tim Norton says Faculty Fellow David Kertzer's new book, The Pope Who Would Be King, is an "important contribution in understanding the many ways that the Catholic Church, cloaked with unquestioned power in the Papal States of Europe, conspired to keep it."
June 20, 2018 Dan Yorke State of Mind
Sociologist Michael Kennedy joined WPRI's Dan Yorke State of Mind to discuss the Singapore Summit between President Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un, and raise questions about the state of moral leadership in America.
June 18, 2018 Radio Open Source
Senior Fellow Chas Freeman joins WBUR's Radio Open Source to discuss President Trump's summit meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong-un.
June 13, 2018 The Washington Post
An opinion piece co-written by Eric Patashnik, argues that the law’s political vulnerabilities and Republican electoral dynamics drive conservative efforts to uproot it and yet conservatives are unlikely to be able to repeal it.
June 6, 2018 Worker's World
A May 2017 report from the Costs of War Project indicated that military spending creates fewer jobs than the same amount of money would have if it had been invested in other sectors, such as clean energy, health care and education.
June 6, 2018 The Atlantic
As sanctions restrict the legal flow of goods, people grow accustomed to the black market. In a 2005 study, Professor Peter Andreas noted that sanctions often breed "a higher level of public tolerance for lawbreaking and an undermined respect for the rule of law."
June 4, 2018 972 Magazine
Professor Ashutosh Varshney compares his studies of villages in the Gujarat state of India, where Muslims and Hindus coexist more harmoniously than in other parts of the country, to that of Galilee, where Jews and Arabs interact daily, primarly economically.
June 4, 2018 Star2
Economist Emily Oster recently published a new book on why much of the conventional pregnancy wisdom is wrong and what expecting mothers really need to know.
June 4, 2018 The Boston Globe
Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, "Repressive rule was imposed on Nicaragua slowly, one outrage at a time. For more than a decade Nicaraguans grumbled but did not act. This spring they finally erupted."
May 30, 2018 The American Interest
Research by Professor Jeff Colgan is cited in an article about the correlation between high oil prices and international conflict. "He also notes that oil-producers are 50 percent more likely to engage in conflict than non-oil producers."
May 29, 2018 Persia Digest
Senior Fellow Chas Freeman joined Persia Digest to discuss the new US strategy on Iran and the future of the Iran nuclear deal, saying, "No one concluding an agreement with the American authorities can now be sure that their successors in office will honor their undertakings."
May 29, 2018 The Boston Globe
Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, "They have been slow to accept the new reality: that Washington is acting against their continent’s interests. If Europe is to remain a center of world power, it will have to rise from its geopolitical slumber and defend itself."
May 25, 2018 International Medical Corps
Adam Levine, Director of the Humanitarian Innovation Initiative, speaks to International Medical Corps about the fight against Ebola.
May 25, 2018 Daily Mail
Economist Emily Oster investigated the statistics, or lack thereof, behind some general wisdom about what women should and shouldn't do during pregnancy.
May 25, 2018 CNN
William Hartung, Cost War Project contributor, mentions that the Project estimates all post-9/11 wars have cost us $5.6 trillion and counting, more than 100 times the Bush administration's initial claims.
May 23, 2018
Catherine Lutz, co-director of the Watson Institute’s Costs of War project, responds to President Trump’s repeated claim that the United States "has spent $7 trillion in the Middle East."
May 23, 2018 Marketplace
Economist John Friedman said that while attending college is an "incredible boost to upward mobility," the path to higher education can have pitfalls for lower-income and minority students, who often leave college saddled with unsustainable debt after earning a degree that may not boost their income or upward mobility.