In the News

Economist Emily Oster investigated the statistics, or lack thereof, behind some general wisdom about what women should and shouldn't do during pregnancy.

Catherine Lutz, co-director of the Watson Institute's Costs of War project, responds to President Trump's repeated claim that the United States "has spent $7 trillion in the Middle East."

Economist John Friedman said that while attending college is an "incredible boost to upward mobility," the path to higher education can have pitfalls for lower-income and minority students, who often leave college saddled with unsustainable debt after earning a degree that may not boost their income or upward mobility.

This article contrasts the Stimson Center figures with the Watson Institute's, which estimates that all war-related spending since 9/11, coupled with future obligations, totals $5.6 trillion.

In the new RT documentary, Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer, examines the rationale and impact of Washington's international interventions, from Hawaii to Libya.

Professor Nina Tannenwald accused President Trump of "working to inflame the Palestinians," labeling him "an arsonist" and saying that "moving the embassy is a way of setting fire to the Middle East."

Rhode Islanders were as divided as the rest of the nation on whether the U.S. decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem on Monday was the fulfillment of a long-delayed promise or a blunder that takes the country out of the peace process.

Senior Fellow Chas Freeman said that if China can't rely on supply chains that include U.S. components, the country will create its own supply chains. Freeman served as President Richard Nixon's interpreter during his famous 1972 visit to China.

Chafee has a record of fiscal responsibility and supporting liberal causes such as environmentalism and same-sex marriage, said Faculty Fellow Wendy Schiller.

Faculty Fellow Wendy Schiller said social media filters often give us a false sense of control over data breaches and propaganda. But, she said, the ability to hand-pick our sources actually causes us to stop screening for accuracy and balance, making us more vulnerable.

Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, "Puerto Ricans never asked to become part of the United States, and Americans never truly wanted them. The two were united in a marriage that more resembled a kidnapping.

President Trump has repeatedly said that the U.S. spent $7 trillion in the Middle East since 9/11, referencing a number from the Costs of War Project, which estimates the U.S. will have spent $7 trillion on wars by 2053.

Professor David Kertzer, the author of "The Pope and Mussolini," said Albright's comment describes the purging of the bureaucracy accurately early in Mussolini's tenure.

Established by Robert Blair, assistant professor of political science, "Democratic Erosion" is a cross-university collaborative course that was created "to help students critically and systematically evaluate the risks to democracy both here and abroad through the lens of theory, history and social science."

Postdoctoral Fellow Narges Bajoghli draws on her research interviews with members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to argue that President Trump's decision to throw out the Iran Deal will permanently destroy any trust the country's citizens once had in the U.S.

"It does not take a very stable genius to understand that the U.S. relationship with China is now under severe stress," said Senior Fellow Chas Freeman at the annual conference for the Committee of 100, a group of influential Chinese-Americans, in Silicon Valley.

Professor Ashutosh Varshney recently sat down with Harvard University's Roderick MacFarquhar to discuss Chinese President Xi Jinping's Wuhan summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer joined WNYC's The Takeaway to discuss Nicaraguans' dissatisfaction with the President Daniel Ortega and the clashes with police during previous protests.

Rob Blair, assistant professor of political science, joined Rhode Island Public Radio to discuss a course he developed following the 2016 presidential election. The course is designed to answer the question: is our democracy failing?

Pius IX became head of the Catholic church in 1846 and instituted the doctrine of Papal infallibility. In an interview with NPR's Terry Gross, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and professor David Kertzer said his exile led to the emergence of modern Italy.

Senior Fellow Deborah Gordon in Live Mint, "As a growing part of a growing region, India's EV policies and refining decisions will be significant, both regionally and globally."

As former FBI Director James Comey travels the nation promoting his new book, the classification of his leaked memos are uncertain.

Prerna Singh, Mahatma Gandhi Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies and faculty fellow at the Watson Institute, has received an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship and a Berlin Prize.

Stories of upward mobility were once a key feature of American life. Children born in the 1940s were almost guaranteed to grow up and earn more than their parents did. But upward mobility has stalled, according to economist John Friedman.

Natalie Portman's decision not to attend an awards ceremony in Israel to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's policies signals a potential turning point in discourse on the country for young American Jews.

Comments by Professor Ashutosh Varshney were mentioned in a segment on the growing religious divide in India, on CNN's GPS with Fareed Zakaria.

Among the winners of the annual award program is Professor Rose McDermott, who "earned a Distinguished Research Achievement Award for her pioneering scholarship, including in the area of political psychology, and her innovative interdisciplinary work across political science, international relations, psychology and behavioral genetics."

The AP has confirmed findings by Professor David Kertzer that Edgardo Mortara's memoirs were changed in ways big and small when they were translated from the original Spanish into Italian.

Public Policy Fellow Marc Dunkleman, said he loves the idea of an ecosystem of entrepreneurs "trying to figure out ways to address" the lack of person-to-person connection in today's society, but he criticized startups for setting up meetings between like-minded people who may not learn more about the world from talking to each other.

Students Alexander Kramer '21 and Emma Chow '21 joined Dan Yorke's State of Mind to discuss the Trump administration's views on youth engagement in politics. Both students are currently enrolled in Michael Kennedy's political sociology courses.

Americans' tax records are the best dataset for assessing income inequality and the odds that a child born poor can become rich. The IRS still only accepts a small number of applications for studies every year, and a list put together by economist John Friedman shows they are almost all from elite schools.

Professor David Kertzer in The Atlantic, "Today, the Edgardo Mortara episode continues to roil the Roman Catholic Church and Catholic-Jewish relations."

While initially reluctant to get entangled in the war in Syria, the U.S. is now prepared to be more involved than ever. In fiscal year 2019, the government assigned $15.3 billion of Department of Defense funds for U.S. operations there.

Ashutosh Varshney in The Indian Express, "Liberals are opposed to Hindu nationalism because it is a form of ethnic nationalism; it is not civic nationalism."

Sociologist Michael Kennedy joined Dan Yorke State of Mind to examine the Trump presidency, from Stormy Daniels to the hiring of John Bolton as the new national security advisor.

"What Anatomy of a Genocide provides instead is perhaps more valuable: A searing portrait of how the Holocaust worked on the ground for ordinary men and women — onetime neighbors and friends whose disparate fates were determined by ethnicity and chance."

The news that President Trump will install John Bolton as his next national security adviser comes at a time when, by some estimates, the U.S. is waging at least nine undeclared wars across the globe.

Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, "Divine visitations are the most powerful of all dreams...Among those believers was one of the most devout American presidents, William McKinley.

The column cites research by the Costs of War project that estimates America's Afghanistan-related spending totals nearly $1 trillion since 2001.

During a Senate debate on the Yemen War Powers Resolution on March 20, 2018, lawmakers discussed the extent of U.S. force abroad and Congress's role in making decisions about where the U.S. goes to war. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) cited new Brown University Costs of War project data showing that the U.S. is taking military action against terrorism in 76 countries. "How often," he asked, "has Congress debated whether those military actions were authorized?"

On the 15th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Globe columnist Michael Cohen observed that though the "so-called war on terrorism is far from over," Americans have, for the most part, moved on. That's despite the fact, he said, that indirect costs from the war total more than $5.5 trillion, according to Brown's Costs of War project.

Catherine Lutz, a professor of anthropology, called National Geographic's past coverage "a kind of white view of the world ... it's safe, and it's basically free of problems." The magazine's forthcoming issue will confront its own racist past.

The morning after President Trump's first travel ban, Robert Blair, assistant professor of political science, was inspired to create a class that addressed three questions troubling him: "Is America's democracy at risk? If it is, how would we know? If it's not, why are we all so freaked out that it is?"

Stephanie Savell, co-director of the Costs of War, comments on the increase of civilian deaths in the Middle East since President Trump took over, saying "We all know there's stuff going on in the name of fighting terror, but there's not much interest in the details.

In African American Intellectual History Society's Black Perspectives, sociologist Michael Kennedy says, "It is about time that the Black Panther helps us move beyond the politeness accommodating white supremacy."

Professor Catherine Lutz comments on National Geographic's recent admission of its racist past. "There was a lot of ways that the racism was complex more than just captions saying, 'These are savages.'"

Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, "The endowment is one of the main instruments by which the United States subverts and undermines foreign governments."

In a new partnership with the George Kaiser Family Foundation, students will be able to spend a portion of the upcoming academic year in Tulsa with the Swearer Center's "Brown in Tulsa Kaiser Fellowship" and the Watson Institute's "Tulsa Fellowship Program."