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.


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
The Perfect Dictatorship? South Korea versus Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico
by Domínguez, Jorge I.
In 1959 South Korea was mired in poverty. By 1979 it had a powerful industrial economy and a vibrant civil society in the making, which would lead to a democratic breakthrough eight years later. The...
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Published Date: April 2011 More
The Blessings of Troubles: Scholarly Innovation in Response to Latin America's Challenges
by Domínguez, Jorge I.
Latin America has been one of the critical areas in the study of comparative politics. The region’s experiments with installing and deepening democracy and promoting alternative modes of economic...
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Published Date: March 2012 More
Conclusion: The Choices of Voters during the 2006 Presidential Election in Mexico
by Domínguez, Jorge I.
In 2006, Felipe Calderón narrowly defeated Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico’s hotly contested presidential election. Mexico’s 2006 presidential race demonstrated the importance of...
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Published Date: August 2012 More
U.S.-Mexican Relations in the Twenty-First Century
by Domínguez, Jorge I.
Drawing on the research and experience of fifteen internationally recognized Latin America scholars, this insightful text presents an overview of inter-American relations during the first decade of...
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Published Date: May 2012 More
Mexico's Campaigns and the Benchmark Elections of 2000 and 2006
by Domínguez, Jorge I.
Since achieving independence from Spain and establishing its first constitution in 1824, Mexico has experienced numerous political upheavals. The country's long and turbulent journey toward...
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Published Date: January 2012 More
Reshaping the Relations between the United States and Cuba
by Domínguez, Jorge I.
Two decades ago affairs between the United States and Cuba had seen little improvement from the Cold War era. Today, U.S.–Cuban relations are in many respects still in poor shape, yet some...
Publication Type: Book Chapter
Published Date: April 2012 More
The Illusion of Democratic Credibility
by Sechser, Todd S.; Downes, Alexander B.
Do democracies make more effective coercive threats? An influential literature in international relations argues that democratic institutions allow leaders to credibly signal their resolve in...
Publication Type: Published Paper
Published Date: June 2012 More
How to Weather a Hurricane
by Aldrich, Daniel P.
Publisher: New York Times
Publication Type: Op-ed
Hurricane Isaac, which made landfall in Louisiana last night, has not only disrupted the Republican National Convention but also brought back painful memories of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated...
Published Date: August 2012 More
Deterring or Displacing Electoral Irregularities? Spillover Effects of Observers in a Randomized Field Experiment in Ghana
by Ichino, Nahomi
This article studies the effect of domestic observers deployed to reduce irregularities in voter registration in a new democracy, and in particular, the response of political parties’ agents to...
Publication Type: Published Paper
Published Date: January 2012 More
Obama and America's Political Future
by Skocpol, Theda
Barack Obama’s galvanizing victory in 2008, coming amid the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s, opened the door to major reforms. But the president quickly faced skepticism from supporters...
Publication Type: Book
Published Date: September 2012 More

Destabilizing the American Racial Order
by Hochschild, Jennifer L.; Weaver, Vesla; Burch, Traci
Since America’s racial disparities remain as deep-rooted after Barack Obama’s election as they were before, it was only a matter of time until the myth of postracism exploded in our collective...
Publication Type: Published Paper
Published Date: April 2011 More
How, If at All, Is Racial and Ethnic Stratification Changing, and What Should We Do about It?
by Hochschild, Jennifer L.
These chapters on the politics of groups push the reader to consider a difficult but essential question: How, if at all, are old forms of racial and ethnic stratification changing? A broadly...
Publication Type: Published Paper
Published Date: September 2010 More