Publications

WCFIA Publications

The Weatherhead Center has developed a presence on the Internet that, to a growing readership, is playing a significant role in the projection of Harvard scholarship on international affairs. The site includes: faculty research available through categorical fields of inquiry; searches by author, subject, title or date of publication; Working Papers selected for online distribution based on their relevance to contemporary issues in international affairs; In the News links to op-ed and other pieces written by or about the Center’s faculty associates; and recent books by faculty associates, including editorial summaries. The Center is always adding to the collection of published journal articles available on its site and responding to the interests of Center faculty and other users in making the site an indispensable scholarly tool.

Below are a selection of our most recently uploaded publications.


Educating Children on the Longest Street in the World
by Kay, Tamara
Publisher: Global Dialogue
Publication Type: Magazine Article
In an urban slum in India children huddle around an old vegetable cart fitted with a television and DVD player transfixed by characters who sing about the letter “ma” in Hindi. In Tanzania...
Published Date: September 2012 More
French Lottery Bonds Show Risky History of Property Bets
by Yates, Alexia
Publisher: Bloomberg
Publication Type: Op-ed
The man who knocks on the door is polished and friendly. His suit is fashionable, his briefcase looks important. And the things he pulls out of it are impressive: large sheets of bonds and coupons...
Published Date: September 2012 More
Turkey's Miscarriage of Justice
by Rodrik, Dani
Publisher: The Washington Post
Publication Type: Op-ed
After a patently sham trial, a Turkish court on Friday handed down lengthy jail sentences to more than 300 military officers convicted of planning a coup, code-named Sledgehammer, in 2003.
Published Date: September 2012 More
The Imperial Peace in Colonial Africa and Africa's Underdevelopment
by Bates, Robert H.
When praised at all, imperialism is most often commended for the peace it bestowed. By demobilizing armies, deposing marauding princes and subduing war-like states, European powers fashioned a...
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Published Date: December 2012 More
The New Institutionalism and Africa
by Bates, Robert H.
After briefly reviewing the new institutionalism, this article uses the history of political reform in Africa to test its key tenet: that power, if properly organized, is a productive resource. It...
Publication Type: Published Paper
Published Date: September 2012 More
Income and Democracy: Lipset’s Law Inverted
by Bates, Robert H.
We revisit Lipset’s law, which posits a positive and significant relationship between income and democracy. Using dynamic and heterogeneous panel data estimation techniques, we find a significant...
Publication Type: Published Paper
Published Date: August 2012 More
Revisiting African Agriculture: Institutional Change and Productivity Growth
by Bates, Robert H.; Block, Steven
Africa is largely agrarian and the performance of agriculture shapes the performance of its economies. It has long been argued that economic development in Africa is strongly conditioned by politics....
Publication Type: Published Paper
Published Date: August 2012 More
The State of Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa
by Bates, Robert H.
Africa experienced a wave of democratization over the past 20 years and this increase in democracy, we find, positively and significantly affects income per capita. Our dynamic panel data results...
Publication Type: Published Paper
Published Date: September 2012 More
Innovation Key to Unlocking Africa's Horticultural Potential
by Juma, Calestous
Publisher: Fresh Fruit Portal
Publication Type: Op-ed
African agriculture is at the crossroads. Persistent food shortages are now being compounded by new threats arising from climate change. But Africa faces three major opportunities that can help...
Published Date: August 2012 More
Public Debt Overhangs: Advanced-Economy Episodes Since 1800
by Rogoff, Kenneth S.
We identify the major public debt overhang episodes in the advanced economies since the early 1800s, characterized by public debt to GDP levels exceeding 90 percent for at least five years....
Publication Type: Published Paper
Published Date: June 2012 More
Education and Military Rivalry
by Aghion, Philippe
Using data from the last 150 years in a small set of countries, and from the postwar period in a large set of countries, we show that large investments in state primary education systems tend to...
Publication Type: Working Papers
Published Date: April 2012 More
Six choses que Valls doit savoir avant d'aller en Roumanie
by Paul, Ruxandra
Publisher: Courrier International
Publication Type: Op-ed
Un rapport de l’ONU du 29 août 2012 met en garde le gouvernement français concernant les évacuations collectives, les rapatriements forcés et les expulsions des communautés Roms, qui risquent...
Published Date: September 2012 More
Toward Better Aid
by Leaning, Jennifer
Publisher: The Harvard Gazette
Publication Type: Interview
Better training, closer coordination among relief agencies, and a bigger dose of humility while working in unfamiliar cultures would help humanitarian aid workers, and make more of the billions of...
Published Date: August 2012 More
Why Obama is Winning
by Ferguson, Niall
Publisher: The Daily Beast
Publication Type: Op-ed
It’s a paradox. The economy is in the doldrums. Yet the incumbent is ahead in the polls. According to a huge body of research by political scientists, this is not supposed to happen. On the other...
Published Date: September 2012 More
Explaining Latin America’s Lagging Development in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century: Growth Strategies, Inequality, and E
by Domínguez, Jorge I.
In 1700, Latin America and British North America were roughly equal in economic terms. Yet over the next three centuries, the United States gradually pulled away from Latin America, and today the...
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Published Date: August 2008 More