PolicyCast

Adam Conner, a spring 2018 fellow at the Institute of Politics, digs into the nuance behind the question many are asking about platforms like Facebook and Twitter, namely: are they good for democracy?

Admiral James “Sandy” Winnefeld, a non-resident senior fellow at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, knows firsthand the damage inflicted by the ongoing opioid crisis. After losing his son to addiction in late 2017, he has committed himself to finding solutions to the seemingly intractable public health dilemma. He discusses his recently-launched foundation Stop the Addiction Fatality Epidemic (SAFE) and the six strategies they are pursuing from awareness to prevention to treatment.

Francisco Marquez Lara MPP 2012 describes his experience as a political prisoner in his home country of Venezuela. He describes what drove him to pursue his political advocacy despite the inherent risks, what his experience was like in captivity, what he learned from the ordeal, and what motivates him to continue his advocacy in exile. Marquez is the Executive Director of Vision Democratica Foundation and a fellow at the Ash Center’s Democracy in Hard Places Initiative.

The Shorenstein Center’s Claire Wardle and journalist Hossein Derakhshan explain how information disorder has taken the world by storm, breaking down how it’s created, produced, and distributed, paying particular attention to the ways in which social media has exacerbated the problem, and making the case that the term F*** News isn’t just inaccurate, but actively harmful to democratic institutions.

Wardle, the research director for the Shorenstein Center’s First Draft News project, and Derakhshan are co-authors of Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policymaking.

HKS Lecturer Juliette Kayyem provides context to the endless stream of news regarding Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. In addition to giving a brief on what we now know, Kayyem also discusses the potential ramifications if President Trump were to attempt to fire Mueller in a move reminiscent of Nixon’s infamous Saturday Night Massacre.

With tax reform legislation now in conference committee having cleared both the U.S. House and Senate, HKS Professor Jason Furman returns with an update on where things stand. He addresses the economic growth the bill’s proponents have claimed; why provisions dealing with “pass-through corporations” have raised questions from economists on both sides of the aisle; how the elimination of the State And Local Tax (SALT) deduction might impact state government finances; why taxing university endowments could hurt U.S. competitiveness; the impact of both bills’ large corporate tax rate cuts; and the parts of the bill that he sees as positive steps.

HKS Professor Nicholas Burns sounds the alarm about what he sees as a deliberate attempt to dismantle the US State Department and Foreign Service.

HKS Senior Lecturer Jeff Seglin offers advice and strategies on how to handle conversations about politics with family and friends who you may not see eye to eye with. And as an added bonus, he shares his family recipe for turkey stuffing.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James explains why city governments have become models for policy innovation and good governance while federal and state governments continue to be mired in partisan gridlock. He speaks to the value of data-driven decision making, as well as his experience enticing Google to pilot their high speed internet service in Kansas City, and the ongoing attempts to attract Amazon’s 2nd headquarters. James is a Fall 2017 Visiting Fellow at both the Institute of Politics and the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

HKS Professor Ricardo Hausmann, the director of the Kennedy School’s Center for International Development, explains the concept of economic complexity and why it has become a reliable predictor of future economic growth. He also discusses the Atlas of Economic Complexity, an interactive website that could help entrepreneurs and policymakers see where a particular country’s economy is heading.

This interview was originally recorded in 2013.