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AUGUST 28, 2025 |
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Harvard Kennedy School | | | |
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A woman views a U.S. Congressional District map as the Senate Special Committee on Congressional Redistricting meets at the Texas State Capitol on August 6, 2025 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images) | | |
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Politics |
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The power of partisan redistricting |
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At the behest of the White House, Republicans in Texas have proposed a remapping of congressional districts that threatens to undermine the democratic process. The move is unusual, coming mid-decade rather than after a census, which occurs every ten years. The proposed map could give Republicans five seats currently held by Democrats and is ramping up partisan tension, with California Democrats seeking to shore up their advantage in retaliatory redistricting in their state. HKS faculty member Ben Schneer talks though partisan districting and gerrymandering in a new video and written Q&A. Schneer says, “Gerrymandering can be done more effectively now because we have fine-grained data on the population and on how people are likely to vote and computing techniques to design maps in clever ways. Put all that together with intense polarization and that creates a perfect storm where gerrymandering can flourish.”
Learn more about Politics at HKS » | | |
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What we're Reading |
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Faculty member Hannah Riley Bowles spoke about women’s leadership at the National Conference of State Legislatures Legislative Summit. | | |
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Environment & energy |
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Climate change harms hit the most vulnerable populations hardest |
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Around the world, the most vulnerable people feel the effects of climate change the most. New HKS faculty member Ishan Nath studies the economic impact of global climate change. He says, “What we know from a lot of data and research is that it’s much worse if you work on a farm than if you work in an office or a factory. One of my papers shows that the effects are 10 times less on non-agricultural sectors than agricultural sectors.” Nath explains, that “whether you work on a farm or in a factory or in an office, you’re much more exposed to productivity losses if you live in a low-income country. It becomes a personal, negative experience in your day to day if you live in a poorer country rather than the richer country.” He explains, “And the unfortunate thing is that the hotter places, the poorer places, and the places where most people work on farms are all mostly the same parts of the world. So, the harm from climate change is likely to be incredibly concentrated among populations that are already very under-resourced.” Learn more about Nath’s research.
See also: Read about and register for Harvard Climate Action Week.
Learn more about Environment & Energy at HKS » | | |
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Decision making & negotiation |
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Understanding the role of emotions in risk taking |
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Emotion plays a role in risk taking. As a decision scientist, Professor Jennifer Lerner studies how. A recent Harvard Gazette article spotlighted an experiment that Lerner conducted with National Institutes of Health scientist Rebecca Ferrer. It showed when male subjects were experiencing anger while engaging in a financial gamble, they took bigger risks—and ended up with bigger rewards—than emotionally neutral males or angry females. “Whether risk-taking turns out to be good or bad depends entirely on the situation,” Lerner said. “We designed our studies to reward risk-taking, but there are many real-world situations where caution would be a better strategy. Also, while males and females may differ on average in how anger influences their financial risk taking, across most decisions there’s more variation within each gender than between genders. So, knowing someone’s gender will tell you less about their decision-making than will understanding their individual traits or social/cultural context.”
Learn more about Decision Making & Negotiation at HKS » | | |
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What we're reading |
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HKS alumna Samya Mishra MPA 2024 helped lead the development and deployment of an innovative public-private financial commitment for the $50 million Momentum Fund, the first-in-the-nation state revolving fund to support mixed-income housing production in Massachusetts. Read about Mishra’s impact. | | | | | |
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