all Department of Government stories

Worth more than the paper they're written on

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:32:32 -0400

According to Beth Simmons, a professor of government at Harvard, governments care what others think of them. They want to be admired and can be publicly embarrassed, just like like people can. Such traits help explain why governments would enter international agreements on areas of mainly domestic concern, such as civil rights, women's rights, race relations, and the use of torture, says Simmons. Her current work examines how well international agreements and treaties work. She is looking at whether nations that signed treaties regulating six areas of human rights have abided by the treaties and improved records in those areas. Though many have criticized such treaties as toothless and unenforceable, Simmons said there is evidence that the treaties that provide a focus for international and domestic pressure on particular issues, do seem to work. "I think generally there are some improvements [in a nation's record] once they sign on," Simmons said. "I am edging toward evidence that causes us to question that flip conclusion [that governments do whatever they want]."

Exploring black political thought, now and then

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:26:16 -0400

Professor Michael Dawson's most recent book, "Black Visions: The Roots of Contemporary African American Mass Political Ideologies" (University of Chicago Press, 2001), brings a historical perspective to black political ideologies. "The work tries to assess, using public opinion materials as well as other types of archival materials, to what degree do some of the historically important political ideologies within the black community still have influence on contemporary black public opinion," he says. The answer, he says, is uneven, fluctuating from era to era. "We don't want to look at public opinion as being static, because these traditions change over time," he says. During his college days in the 1970s, for instance, many ideologies competed to capture the black political agenda.

Prying the lid off the FDA

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:26:00 -0400

Even though asthma is responsible for more deaths and more hospitalizations than arthritis in the United States, the greater political influence of arthritis sufferers prompts the federal Food and Drug Administration to work more expeditiously on their behalf. "Why give one drug priority over another?" asks researcher Daniel Carpenter. "Well, the FDA has limited resources and they must make choices. What happens is that the better organized and more newsworthy patients tend to get quicker results." Carpenter has spent many years conducting a large scale study of the FDA that looks carefully at the agency's history, its inner dynamics, and its impact on the pharmaceutical industry and on public health.

Undergraduates observe Rwandan attempts at justice

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:24:04 -0400

The Rwandan genocide memorial was a tiny one-room church, pervaded
still by a penetrating stench. On a table in the church was a pile of
human skulls and femurs, a startling reminder of the people who sought
shelter there in 1994 when the killers came calling.

"It just struck me that in this one church 5,000 people died, innocent
people, and the world didn't blink an eye," said Harvard junior Leila
Chirayath.

Chirayath and five other Harvard undergraduates spent six weeks in
Rwanda last summer studying how the Rwandan government is seeking
justice for the estimated 500,000 mostly minority Tutsis killed when
the small east African country erupted in vicious widespread ethnic
violence.

The myth of American isolationism

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:28:59 -0400

American diplomacy in the 1920s was subtle but ambitious and effective, instead of isolationist, argues Harvard Assistant Professor of Government Bear F. Braumoeller. American policy in the years leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor was in fact quite responsive to events on the European continent, Braumoeller says. Though isolationists did exist, they never came close to constituting a majority. In short, American isolationism is a myth.

Soft news and critical journalism eroding audiences

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:05:14 -0400

A rise in soft news and critical journalism "may now be hastening the decline in news audiences" and "weakening the foundation of democracy by diminishing the public's information about public affairs and its interest in politics," according to a Harvard study. The study, conducted by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, included an analysis of changes in news coverage during the 1980s and 1990s. "Over the long run, soft news is shrinking the numbers of viewers and readers, especially because those who prefer hard news are much heavier consumers of news," said Thomas E. Patterson, the author of the study's report, "Doing Well and Doing Good," and Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press. "And negative coverage of politics and government is having an impact on Americans' attachment to politics, which further erodes their interest in learning about it through the news."