Year: 2025

Trump’s Legal Strategy Has a Name

brass statue of a woman holding judicial scales

In May, The Atlantic shared an article by Andrew O’Donohue, discussing the administration’s legal strategy and the pattern of democratic backsliding globally. “Donald Trump’s attacks on the courts lack recent precedent in the United States, but they follow a clear pattern seen in backsliding democracies around the world. In many countries, when political leaders challenge…

How Will We Know When We Have Lost Our Democracy?

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The New York Times recently published an article by Gov faculty Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, Lucan Way, asking how will Americans know when we have lost our democracy? “Authoritarianism is harder to recognize than it used to be. Most 21st-century autocrats are elected. Rather than violently…

The U.S. Judicial Crisis Is Uniquely Dangerous

stone building with pillars

Andrew O’Donohue, a Ph.D. Candidate in the Government Department and a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published an opinion article in Foreign Policy on how other democracies provide a roadmap for courts to prevail over attacks from the executive branch. “Just two months in, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is aggressively…

Jerry Min’s insightful research on tax treaties garners APSA recognition

Jerry Min headshot with red background

Jerry Min, a Ph.D. candidate in Government and A.M. candidate in Statistics at Harvard, has been awarded the APSA Best Poster Award. This award recognizes the best poster presented by a graduate student or early career scholar at the previous year’s American Political Science Association (APSA) Annual Meeting and is chosen by a selection committee…

Justin L. Brooks receives prestigious APSA Christian Bay Award for research on Freedmen’s Bureau and Racial Formation

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We are pleased to share that Ph.D. candidate Justin L. Brooks has been honored with the 2025 Christian Bay Award by the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Critical Political Science section. Brooks received this recognition for his paper “Juridical Occasions for Racial Formation: The Freedmen’s Bureau, Labor, and Private Law”. The prestigious Christian Bay Award…

Gov scholars bring fresh insights to global AI & Philosophy Forum in Athens

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On June 20, Athens became the epicenter of scholarly dialogue on the intersection of philosophy and artificial intelligence, hosting The Lyceum Project – an annual initiative where world-leading academics and practitioners explore how technology can sustain and enrich society. Among the distinguished participants – which included Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Prime Minister of Greece – were…

Feyaad Allie named CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar

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We are pleased to announce that Assistant Professor Feyaad Allie has been named a 2025 CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar. Allie joins an elite cohort of just 12 early-career researchers selected from a pool of 232 applicants worldwide for the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’s (CIFAR) highly competitive program. The CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program brings…

Jennifer Hochschild and Stephanie Ternullo named Cabot Fellows

The Department of Government proudly congratulates Professors Jennifer Hochschild and Stephanie Ternullo on being named Walter Channing Cabot Fellows. This prestigious honor recognizes faculty members in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences whose groundbreaking publications and scholarship have significantly advanced the fields of literature, history, or art. Awarded annually, the Cabot Fellowships celebrate scholarly impact,…

Celebrating the Department of Government’s graduating Ph.D. Class of 2024-25

Group of graduating phds

The Department of Government is proud to honor our 2024-25 graduating Ph.D. students, whose academic curiosity, dedication, and resilience represent the very best of our scholarly community. This year, we celebrate Evelyn Boyden, Reed Rasband, Austin Jordan, Hunter Rendleman, Ye Helen Zhang, Brian Palmiter, Mafalda Pratas, Jordan Rudinsky, Juan Dodyk, Katherine Irajpanah, Sophie Pangle, Chris…

18 Government seniors elected to Phi Beta Kappa

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We are thrilled to announce that 18 Government concentrators from the Class of 2025 have been elected to the prestigious Alpha Iota of Massachusetts, Harvard’s historic chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. The Department of Government proudly congratulates: Oluchi Amadife, Liz Benecchi, Joyce Chen, Mert Geyiktepe, Andrew Gong, Conner Huey, Eric Hwang, Isabelle King, Hazel Koh,…