News

Abolishing School Resource Officers Amidst the Black Lives Matter Movement: A History and Case Study in Oakland and Los Angeles
May 5, 2021
Author
Written by Wendy Gomez

This paper explores the potential of abolishing school resource officers (SROs), their history in education, and their role in exacerbating the effects of the school-to-prison pipeline and racial injustice. In the midst of calls to defund the police, policies to abolish police in schools are a vital first step. This paper argues that there is an interconnected history between SROs and surveilling youth-led civil rights movements. Today, we see the results—SROs have negatively impacted Black and brown youth subjugating them to higher rates of school-related arrests. Using historical case studies of Oakland and Los Angeles, this research draws on the potential to enact policies that end police in schools. Additionally, this paper places organizers as key actors in policy change. The analysis situates the movement to eliminate SROs as an extension of the civil rights struggle and as a microcosm of the modern-day struggle for abolition.

IMF Bailouts Won’t Fix Egypt’s State-Controlled Economy
Dec. 11, 2023
Author
Written by Nathan McQuarrie

If Egypt continues to receive IMF funding without relinquishing state-control of its economy, it will never escape its financial crisis and will only require more bailouts.

Regulating AI: Opportunities to Combat Algorithmic Bias and Technological Redlining
Dec. 4, 2023
Author
Written by Kristina Lorch

The increasing prevalence of artificial intelligence technologies in the United States has generated a new kind of redlining risk through algorithmic bias. President Biden’s recent executive order provides one of several opportunities to curb this risk.

Loss & Damage Needs a New Governance Model
Nov. 17, 2023
Author
Written by Christian Perkins

Countries with the highest historic carbon emissions – and therefore most responsible for the worst effects of a warmed planet – should pay for climate-induced damages.

Palestinians at the Center: Three Takeaways from Gaza and Israel
Oct. 13, 2023
Author
Written by Omar Elhaj

The only way toward collective liberation for both Palestinians and Israelis is decolonization and ensuring equal rights to land, freedoms, and justice.

Heat-Linked Parametric Insurance System Offers Climate Change Lifeline for Indian Women in the Informal Sector
Oct. 6, 2023
Author
Written by Aditi Desai

How a novel heat-microinsurance program launched in Gujarat, India protects informal female workers by replacing income lost due to climate-driven extreme heat events.

Formalizing Africa's Informal Sector Through the AfCFTA: An Opportunity for Economic Transformation
Sept. 11, 2023
Author
Written by Funke Aderonmu

As African states move to accelerate regional integration through free trade, can they harness Africa's economic powerhouse - the informal economy?

India's National Register of Citizens Threatens Mass Statelessness
June 2, 2023
Author
Written by Uma Menon

Leaders in support of the National Register of Citizens ought to consider the policy’s harmful consequences, which stand in contradiction to India’s constitutional principles of human rights and secularism. 

Letter from the Editors
May 26, 2023
Dear readers, 

To say the last two years have been transformational is near trite these days, but the impacts of the pandemic era cannot be understated. COVID-19 accelerated the threat of a declining public infrastructure, highlighting the need to rethink fundamental paradigms and processes embedded in our institutions. Beyond the…

Is the Devil in the Details? A Rare Look into a BRI Contract in Kyrgyzstan
May 26, 2023

This analysis delves into the concerns surrounding debt-trap diplomacy in Kyrgyzstan by examining a leaked loan contract of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for the construction of the Alternative North-South Road. This unique occasion—as contracts are usually shrouded in confidentiality—sheds light on the dynamics of BRI lending in the region and on a global level. The analysis considers the political and economic implications of China's investments in Kyrgyzstan, aiming at investigating whether the investment is geared toward exerting political influence, as has been suggested by the active political debate around the narrative of debt-trap diplomacy. While acknowledging the limited data available, this analysis neither finds application for debt-trap diplomacy nor an active attempt by Chinese entities to utilize contractual provision, even though on paper the contract could allow for the latter. Despite the lack of hard evidence, the paper contributes to the academic debate by shifting attention from broader geopolitical considerations and the debt-trap narrative, to increased scrutiny of contractual provisions in large-scale infrastructure projects, in which BRI lending indeed appears to differentiate itself.