A political scientist takes a long view of the impact of COVID-19.

... Read more about Does the Fourteenth-Century Black Death Hold Lessons for Today’s Pandemic?

Japan’s experience with the pandemic shows that harsh restrictions are not necessarily the answer to containing the virus. Historian and faculty member Andrew Gordon sheds light on the political and cultural factors that allow for the country’s unique response.

... Read more about Explaining Japan’s Soft Approach to COVID-19

A historian working in Vietnam reflects on the past events that shaped the country’s response to COVID-19.

... Read more about How Vietnam Was Poised for the Pandemic

The pandemic has shaken the island territory of Guam, creating insecurity not seen since World War II. Graduate Student Affiliate Kristin Oberiano explains how the US’s imperial relationship with Guam has made its citizens uniquely vulnerable to infection and food shortages during this crisis.

... Read more about A Pacific Island's Response to COVID-19: Guam and the Movement Toward Food Sovereignty

India's 100 million internal migrant workers are now stranded under COVID-19 lockdown measures and cannot return home. Faculty Associate Sai Balakrishnan maps the pathways of migrant laborers and describes the policies that created an east-west divide.

... Read more about India's Migrant Crisis: Trapped in a COVID Spatial Rift

A comparative look at the global efforts to control the disease will tell us much about the effectiveness of healthcare systems around the world and also help prepare us for the next bug. 

... Read more about The International Response to COVID-19: A Q&A with Dr. Almaliky

From the day-to-day experiences to reflections on a return to "normal," an internist and WCFIA Associate reviews the course of COVID-19.

... Read more about A Closer Look at COVID-19: A Q&A with Dr. Almaliky

Over a period of ten years, Annette Idler conducted fieldwork along the volatile borderlands of Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador to better understand how life proceeds in a gray zone, where the government has abandoned you, and where the rule of law does not exist.

... Read more about Armed Groups Are Watching You: Life in the Borderlands

Four scholars contextualize India’s controversial citizenship amendments within the history of imperial rule, mobility, and itinerancy in South Asia.

By Swati Chawla, Jessica Namakkal, Kalyani Ramnath, Lydia Walker

... Read more about Who Is a Citizen in Contemporary India?

“Ukraine stands at the forefront of the battle between authoritarianism and liberal democracy. The country’s commitment and capacity to progress towards self-reliance are hampered by an ongoing two-front war—against Russia’s full scale aggression on the one hand, and against its internal legacy of corruption on the other.” —USAID 1/13/2020

By Lidia Powirska

... Read more about Walking the Precipice: Reforming Ukraine through International Pressure

Center Affiliate Gökce Yurdakul and her collaborators examine how far right parties in Germany whip up a sense of emergency and danger around the issue of immigration and dictate what it means to be a true German.

By Gökce Yurdakul, Özgür Özvatan, and Bernhard Forchtner

... Read more about Bikinis, Blondes, and Burkas: Gender and Islam in the German Far Right

The Arab Spring was not an event, it was the beginning of a long and ongoing process of transformation, says Weatherhead Center Associate Hicham Alaoui.

By Michelle Nicholasen

... Read more about A Dissident’s View of the Arab Spring

The accumulation of human-generated waste is causing negative health and environmental impacts around the globe. Many countries are realizing they must work together to reduce waste by recovering, reusing, and remaking things—and the inspiration and technology to create such a “circular economy” already exists.

By Henrique Pacini and Carrie Snyder 

... Read more about Recapturing the Value of the World’s Trash

Are fake news and the misuse of personal data just unintended consequences of a new technology? Scholars Sandra Goh and Jack Loveridge believe tech investors have an ethical imperative to head off potential harms to democracy early on.

By Sandra Goh and Jack Loveridge

New startups are launching innovative technologies with the potential to transform democracies around the world, often in foreseeable ways. Always looking toward the future, early investors in new tech should work to infuse a startup’s business model with an ethical outlook that upholds democratic values. For a case in point, look no further than the recent history of a humble dorm room startup that attained a remarkable global reach: Facebook. 

It’s now been over a year since CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivered his much-publicized testimony before the US Senate’s Commerce and Judiciary Committees. Since then, in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal—in which data from 87 million user profiles were made available to third party developers seeking to influence the 2016 US presidential election and the UK’s Brexit referendum—his company has struggled to reassure the world of its good intentions.... Read more about Bankrolling Ethics: Do Tech Investors Have a Responsibility to Protect Democracy?

In his latest book, historian Sunil Amrith describes the ageless link between water and prosperity in South Asia and examines the new challenges of climate change.

By Michelle Nicholasen

The monsoon is often referred to as India’s “finance minister,” writes Faculty Associate Sunil Amrith, because the economy of South Asia is deeply tied to the amount of rainfall the monsoon brings each year—to fill aquifers, irrigate agriculture, and drive hydroelectricity. But climate change is threatening to shift the patterns of the monsoon, making it more erratic, with the potential to destabilize livelihoods throughout the region. 

In his latest book, Unruly Waters: How Rains, Rivers, Coasts, and Seas Have Shaped Asia’s History, Amrith describes the intricate role water plays in the interconnected economic and social structures of South Asia, and tells the stories of people and institutions that have undertaken massive efforts to harness water and control its distribution. ... Read more about From Deluge to Drought: The Inescapable Role of Water in the History of South Asia