The Conversation

What Black Lives Matter means beyond policing reform

Written by Garrett Felber, Ph.D. Candidate in American Culture, University of Michigan

Riots in Harlem, 1964Wikimedia Commons

After the killing of five police officers in Dallas last week by a lone gunman, where does the Black Lives Matter movement go?

Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza answered this question, saying she anticipated that the Dallas shooting would “create the conditions for increased security,...

Slow death: Is the trauma of police violence killing black women?

Written by Christen Smith, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African and African Diaspora Studies, University of Texas at Austin

Diamond Reynolds at a rally at the governor's residence, St Paul, Minnesota on July 7, 2016.Lorie Shaull/Flickr, CC BY-SA

Diamond Reynolds’ live stream of Philando Castile bleeding to death after being shot by Officer Jeronimo Yanez has shocked and dismayed our nation.

It is difficult to imagine the pain of witnessing and archiving the death...

How to sell a product called democracy

Written by Philip Kotler, S.C. Johnson & Son Professor of International Marketing, Northwestern University

Marketing – something I know quite a bit about – and democracy are closely connected. Exploring this connection could help us improve not only our country’s electoral and government system, but also the lives of many Americans.

Marketers have a specific mindset. They start by asking what people want and need. They deeply research...

Is anything ever 'forgotten' online?

Written by Keith W. Ross, Dean of Engineering and Computer Science at NYU Shanghai; Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, New York University

How hard is it to find what people would prefer was forgotten?Magnifying glass with person and question mark via shutterstock.com

When someone types your name into Google, suppose the first link points to a newspaper article about you going bankrupt 15 years ago, or to a YouTube video of you smoking cigarettes 20 years ago, or simply a webpage that...

Americans think national parks are worth US$92 billion, but we don't fund them accordingly

Written by Linda J. Bilmes, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Public Finance, Harvard University

Viewing wildlife in Yellowstone National Park, WyomingNational Park Service/Flickr

One of the quirks of government accounting is that our nation’s most valuable assets – from aircraft carriers to interstate highways – don’t appear on any national balance sheet. In part this is because it is hard to put a value on them. How...

NATO summit: Despite high public support for defense spending in Europe, discord over burden sharing emerges

Written by Richard C. Eichenberg, Associate Professor, Tufts University

President Obama with UK Prime Minister David Cameron.NATO

The NATO summit in Warsaw that wrapped up on July 9 demonstrated once again that the defense spending effort of European allies remains a contentious issue in the alliance.

On the eve of the summit, news reports indicated that American officials had prepared a briefing designed in part to...

Why is it so hard to improve American policing?

Written by Frederic Lemieux, Professor and Program Director of Bachelor in Police and Security Studies; Master’s in Security and Safety Leadership; Master’s in Strategic Cyber Operations and Information Management, George Washington University

The use of lethal force by police officers in Minnesota and Baton Rouge has once again sparked protests over the violent dynamic between citizens and the police.

The ideal today is “democratic policing,” a concept developed by scholars like Gary T. Marx at MIT. Broadly, this refers to a police force that is publicly accountable, subject...

A tragic reminder that policing takes a toll on officers, too

Written by John Violanti, Professor of Epidemiology and Environmental Health , University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

The recent police shootings and the murder Thursday of five police officers put a spotlight on the troubled occupation of policing. Recent public perception of police has reached a 22-year low in the United States, with a 2015 poll showing that about only 52 percent have a “great deal” of confidence in the institution. Among those who...

Fed's focus on 'too big to fail' won't save taxpayers from next bank bailout

Written by Oz Shy, Senior Lecturer in Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Last month, the Federal Reserve announced that 31 out of 33 U.S. banks had passed its latest “stress test,” designed to ensure that the largest financial institutions have enough capital to withstand a severe economic shock.

Passing the test amounts to being given a clean bill of health by the Fed. So are taxpayers – who were on...

Freaks, geeks, norms and mores: why people use the status quo as a moral compass

Written by Christina Tworek, Ph.D. Student in Developmental Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Does what's most usual seem inherently good to you?Fish image via www.shutterstock.com.

The Binewskis are no ordinary family. Arty has flippers instead of limbs; Iphy and Elly are Siamese twins; Chick has telekinetic powers. These traveling circus performers see their differences as talents, but others consider them freaks with “no values or...