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Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

This issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy, with Lord John Alderdice the guest editor, examines how, with the advent of sophisticated technologies & AI, the conduct of wars & peacemaking in the opening decades of the 21st century has changed with implications for the future of both & society at large.

Perspectives Of Hispanic/Latina Women Ages 60 And Over On The Impact Of Single Motherhood And Their Long-Term Financial Well-Being, Tess Juno Anselm

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Unmarried women over the age of 60 continue to experience disproportionate rates of adult poverty in the United States, while families headed by single mothers experience the highest poverty rates. This study explores the long-term impact of single motherhood on financial wellness through the perspective of Hispanic/Latina women ages 60 and over who have experienced single motherhood in Massachusetts. A transdisciplinary study, it utilizes intersectionality as a theoretical framework, employs feminist standpoint informed inquiry methods to document lived experiences through in-depth interviews, and engages diffraction as a mode of praxis as it intra-acts with narratives and explores the systems and …

Seeing Race As We Are: Avoiding, Arguing, Aspiring, Michael A. Cowan

New England Journal of Public Policy

Racial conflict in the United States pushes people to positions of argument or avoidance, more or less intensely and for varying lengths of time, depending on external events like the murder of George Floyd. Neither stance produces the conversations required to seek common ground and compromise around racial issues. Argument alone deepens divisions and avoidance leaves them to metastasize in the social body. In an attempt to go beneath these two positions, this article first explains the role and form of interpretation in all conflict and dispute resolution and how it is shaped. Then it examines the concepts and strategies …

The Art And Artifacts Of Solidarity, Yasmin Merali

New England Journal of Public Policy

In Complex Adaptive Systems in a Contentious World I showed how viewing social systems as Complex Adaptive Systems exposes the systemic mechanisms that underpin their resilience and sustainability. In this article I show the utility of that approach for elucidating the role of art and artists in the evolution of resilient social movements. I do this by exploring the way in which art and artifacts were implicated in the evolution of the Polish Solidarność movement.

Referendum Metrics: The Numbers Game, Chapter Five From Perils And Prospects Of A United Ireland, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is an extract from Perils and Prospects of a United Ireland, published by Lilliput Press, Dublin, Ireland in March 2023. The book draws on extensive interviews with ninety-seven senior politicians across the ethno-national divide, a range of academics and political commentators, and religious leaders.

The context for the chapter is the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (B/GFA), which ended thirty years of violent conflict between Irish republicans, mostly Catholic, who wanted Northern Ireland to become reunified with the rest of Ireland, and unionists, mostly Protestants supported by British security forces, who wanted to maintain the union of Northern Ireland …

Toward A New Political Project: Resetting By Reconceptualizing, Scherto Gill

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article starts by pointing out that existing proposals to confront the failures of democracy tend to be limited to tackling the symptoms of the current dysfunctional system rather than offering meaningful alternatives to transform the system. It then suggests that a total reset is required and offers an innovative theoretical framework, to conceptualize the new political project, that can transcend the existing impasses. It further argues that such a framework ought to consist in four fundamental, interdependent, and mutually reinforcing principles: (1) equal primary, non-derivative value of all persons; (2) non-instrumentalization of persons; (3) well-being of all as a …

Reset Or Revolution? Contemporary Problems Of Political Stability And Some Ancient Solutions, Dariusz Karłowicz

New England Journal of Public Policy

In this article I take a critical look into the challenges faced by the contemporary social, political, and economic scene in Europe and the United States after nearly eighty years of political stability. I question the sources of the anger, frustration, and distrust toward national and supranational institutions that are visible both on the streets and in the light of numerous public opinion polls. I argue that political and legal stability—the driving force and most desirable product of Western democracies—is becoming a problem. Through the tendency to permanent, often hereditary, marginalization of large groups of the population, a stable political …

Peacemaking And Peacebuilding In A Divided Society: South Africa’S National Peace Accord In The Transition From Apartheid To Democracy, Liz Carmichael

New England Journal of Public Policy

South Africa’s complex history is outlined, providing an explanatory background to the two chief conflicts that existed in 1990 as the apartheid era drew to a close: the divide between the government with its security forces and the majority of the population, and grassroots violence between African National Congress supporters and the conservative Inkatha movement. During the 1990s, as South Africa accomplished its transition, a series of structures were created to manage the process. The best remembered is the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was the final transitional structure, holding its hearings in 1996–98. The first was the National Peace …

Cultural Work In Peacebuilding Among Traumatized Communities Of Northern Ireland 1: Background And General Considerations, Eugen Koh

New England Journal of Public Policy

Peace in Northern Ireland today remains fragile despite the exhaustive peacebuilding efforts that have taken place since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Many aspects of the sectarian conflict have been embedded in cultural substrata of the respective communities, and cultural transformation is necessary to achieve comprehensive and sustained peace. The basic assumptions about the Other in this sectarian conflict have their origin in traumatic events that occurred more than three hundred years ago and have been reinforced by the more recent three decades of conflict known as the Troubles. These traumatic individual and collective experiences across the generations have …

Cultural Work In Peacebuilding Among Traumatized Communities Of Northern Ireland 2: Talking About Culture, Eugen Koh

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is the second of two that describe a psychodynamically informed understanding of the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland and an approach to cultural transformation called “cultural work” aimed at building peace among the state’s traumatized communities. The conflict between Protestant and Catholic communities has extended well into the cultural domain and is often weaponized to attack the Other. Conversations about culture quickly become stuck in a quagmire of identity politics. This article describes a psychodynamic trauma–informed approach to cultural conversations involving an in-depth analysis of culture that avoids becoming stuck. It outlines a framework and set of preconditions …

The Youth Inferno: Two-Way Working On Ancestral Lands, Pamela Nathan

New England Journal of Public Policy

In this article I present some of the work of Creating a Safe and Supportive Environment (CASSE) in Central Australia, Northern Territory, with the youth in the justice system, referring to our dual cultural and therapeutic program Shields for Living, Tools for Life. Psychoanalytic concepts and tools that have informed the work and transformed the trauma landscape are detailed. The work is at the epicenter of anger, concern, and politics in Central Australia and this epicenter has been named the “youth crisis.” It is a journey of feeling the heat, of being on a rollercoaster ride in a landscape of …

The State Of Latino Education: 2010-2020, Fabián Torres-Ardila, Nyal Fuentes

Gastón Institute Publications

In this report, we will provide a descriptive analysis of the main trends in educational achievement for Latinos in Massachusetts in the period 2010-2022. We highlight areas in which Latino students have made considerable progress since the publication of the 2010 Gastón report “The State of Latinos and Education in Massachusetts: 2010,” along with other areas in which progress has stalled and/or been reversed. The data presented cover only until 2020, before the full effects of the Covid-19 pandemic were felt. We end with recommendations for further development of a Latino Education agenda.

¡Avancemos Ya!: Persistent Economic Challenges And Opportunities Facing Latinos In Massachusetts, Trevor Mattos, Phillip Granberry, Vishakha Agarwal

Gastón Institute Publications

Massachusetts is among the wealthiest states in the country, yet Latino communities here have struggled economically relative to Latinos nationwide. There have been some bright spots—poverty rates have decreased and Latinos now have higher rates of entrepreneurship, education and labor force participation than in years past. Still, a disproportionate share of the more than 800,000 Latinos in Massachusetts today contend with food insecurity and have low rates of intergenerational economic mobility.

Asian Americans And The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Multi-Lingual Survey In Greater Boston, Carolyn Wong, Ziting Kuang

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

This report on Asian Americans and the Covid-19 Pandemic describes lessons from a multilingual survey administered in Greater Boston during the Fall, Winter, and early Spring of 2020-21. The Institute for Asian American Studies (IAAS) at UMass Boston designed and administered the IAAS Covid-19 Survey on the health, economic, and social impacts of the pandemic for Asian Americans. The IAAS Covid-19 Survey was designed to fill significant gaps in data available from a previous Spring 2020 survey, Living in Boston During Covid-19, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and administered by UMass Boston’s Center for Survey Research …

Getting To Yes: The Makings Of Paid Leave In Massachusetts, Christa Kelleher, Laurie Nsiah-Jefferson, Priyanka Kabir, Lillian Hunter, Cassandra M. Porter, Center For Women In Politics And Public Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Considered one of the strongest paid family and medical leave laws in the nation, the paid leave law adopted in Massachusetts in 2018 was notable for the depth and range of robust caregiving supports and protections for workers. But just as notable is how the law came to be. After all, paid leave bills had been filed for years in Massachusetts. Decades in fact. Yet until 2018, there had been limited movement in the legislature to establish a statewide program. What led to the passage of paid leave legislation in Massachusetts with approval from a Republican Governor? What factors influenced …

The White Supremacist Penetration Of Western Security Forces: The Wider Implications, Kumar Ramakrishna

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article argues that recent instances of white supremacist penetration of Western security forces should not be regarded as isolated issues. They are related to the worrying wider phenomenon of the gradual societal and political mainstreaming of white supremacist ideas in Western countries. Drawing on the German and US cases as examples, the article unpacks the argument by first examining the core theories of white supremacism: the “great replacement” and “white genocide.” It then explores how these theories have been weaponized, before proceeding to analyze the structure and modalities of the white supremacist threat. The article then considers the wider …

An Introduction To Right-Wing Extremism In India, Mohammed Sinan Siyech

New England Journal of Public Policy

Right-wing extremism has had a long history in India with the current atmosphere heavily tilted in favor of right-wing extremists. This article explores the history of the right wing in the nation and various factors that strengthened different actors within this spectrum of politics in India. Relying on secondary sources, it notes that the Indian caste system has played a role in bolstering the Hindu majoritarian identity that is currently dominant in India apart from various other factors, such as the incompetency of other political parties (including left-wing parties). Drawing on several examples, it argues that the unwillingness of the …

Latino Veterans In Massachusetts, Phillip Granberry, Vishakha Agarwal

Gastón Institute Publications

Among the many types of services that promote the country’s general welfare, military service is among the most noble. People in the military are keenly aware that their service can place their lives at risk so that others keep their economic, political, and social wellbeing. In addition, those with families are aware that hazardous duty pay for deployment in a war zone in no way compensates for the stress placed on their families. This report estimates that 10,674 Latino veterans live in Massachusetts and provides a descriptive comparison to both non-Latino veterans and non-veteran Latinos. These veterans are 1.2% of …

A Portrait Of Latino Children: The Gap With Non-Latinos In Massachusetts, Phillip Granberry, Alejandro Alvarez, Vishakha Agarwal, Fabián Torres-Ardila, Gaston Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Gastón Institute Publications

Latino children are one of Massachusetts' fastest-growing segments of the population. However, evidence suggests that the social and economic context in which Latino children live does not adequately support their development and overall wellbeing. Nearly a third of Latino children in the United States live in very low-opportunity neighborhoods as defined by a scale of educational, health, environmental, and socioeconomic outcomes. Compared to non-Latino children, Latinos are more likely to grow up in households below the federal poverty threshold and less likely to have a mother with at least a Bachelor's degree. The research included in this report aims to …

Latinx Political Leadership In Massachusetts (2021), Leyi Andrea Perez, Fabián Torres-Ardila, Christa Kelleher

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Fact Sheet provides an overview of Latinx political leadership and representation in Massachusetts.

Conflict, Complexity, And Cooperation, John, Lord Alderdice

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article explores the thesis that we are at a time of historical inflection and suggests what next steps might look like. The change in the seat of authority from the sixteenth century on with the replacement of political and religious hierarchies by participatory democracy and Enlightenment philosophies based on rationalism has seen a remarkable period of progress in science, technology, education, medicine, governance, trade, economics, and the rule of law. The twenty-first century, however, has ushered in a series of reversals for liberal democracy, the fraying of the international rules-based order that emerged after the two world wars and …

Profiles In Leadership: Women Of Color Elected To Office In Massachusetts, Center For Women In Politics And Public Policy, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

In 2015, UMass Boston’s Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy released the first-ever publication exploring the elected leadership of women of color in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts largely to make known the contributions of female electeds of color across the Commonwealth. The publication also aimed to delve into what hinders and what facilitates the elected leadership of women of color. This 2021 updated publication contains profiles of the 174 women of color who have been elected to key policymaking positions and offers quantitative analysis to better understand office-holding patterns.

Evident in the profiles is the centrality of community …

Sustainable Pathways For Successful Small Businesses In Chelsea, Massachusetts, Fabián Torres-Ardila, Lorna Rivera, Carolina Rojas-Pion, Daniela Bravo, Henry Chavez

Gastón Institute Publications

This report focuses on the critical role that small business owners and entrepreneurs play in the socioeconomic development of a predominantly Latino community like Chelsea, Massachusetts.

This report compiles the key findings and recommendations that resulted from conducting a qualitative study with small business owners and other individuals who play important roles in advocating for and supporting this community. Assuming an asset-based approach rather than a deficit-based one (Green & Haines, 2011), our study focuses on the skills and knowledge of small business owners and identifies a myriad of possibilities for City administrators to build upon existing practices and behaviors …

Education Inequity By Design: A Case Study Of The Duval County Public School System, 1954–1964, Carolyn B. Edwards

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This historical case study examined inequity by design of the Duval County Public Schools in Jacksonville, Florida, between 1954 and 1964. Duval County’s response to the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 highlighted the historical influence of White supremacy within this school system, suppressing Black education through a dual school system. Political, economic, and judicial decisions supported the system’s resistance to desegregation and perpetuated education inequity. The author sought to understand the overt and covert political, economic, and judicial influences behind the Duval County Public Schools’ inequity by design to determine if these influences are generally …

Latinx Population Hit Hard In The Covid-19 Recession: Mounting Hardships And One Big Idea For An Inclusive Recovery, Trevor Mattos, Bansari Kamdar, Phillip Granberry, Fabián Torres-Ardila

Gastón Institute Publications

Back before the COVID-19 crisis hit and the economy was relatively strong in the aggregate, Massachusetts’ Latinx population—a diverse and growing community that makes valuable economic and cultural contributions—had the lowest incomes and lowest homeownership rate among racial/ethnic groups in Massachusetts. Latinx working-age adults tended to have lower levels of educational attainment and were more likely to have limited English language proficiency. These, in part, contributed to higher levels of unemployment and food insecurity before the pandemic. Then the COVID crisis hit in March of 2020, serving to compound many of these pre-existing challenges, as Latinx workers were more likely …

Latinos In Massachusetts: Afro-Latinos, Trevor Mattos, Phillip Granberry, Quito Swan

Gastón Institute Publications

Afro-Latinx communities are critical stakeholders in Black and Latinx demographic groups, and they also make up a critical fabric of Boston, Massachusetts and the United States politically, economically and culturally. The Afro-Latinx experience sheds light on the critical intersections of race, ethnicity, culture, economics, gender, and class in not only America, but in Afro-Latinx Diasporas across the Americas and the world. Afro-Latinx individuals and institutions often face racism within broader Latinx communities and White America and are often stigmatized by their non-Latino Black counterparts. At the same time, there is a strong tradition of Afro-Latinx political advocacy, cross cultural movements …

Understanding Myanmar’S Buddhist Extremists: Some Preliminary Musings, Kumar Ramakrishna

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article examines Buddhist extremism in Myanmar. It argues that Buddhist extremism—like other types of religious extremism—is an acute form of fundamentalism. The article begins with a survey of how extremism is usually understood in the theoretical literature, showing that its religious variant is best conceived of as an acute form of fundamentalism. It then fine tunes this understanding, arguing that religious extremism is a fundamentalist belief system that justifies structural violence against relevant out-groups. The article outlines seven core characteristics of the religious extremist culled from the various theoretical approaches to extremism. It employs these seven characteristics to examine …

Damnatio Memoriae: On Deleting The East From Western History, Koert Debeuf

New England Journal of Public Policy

The story we read in books about the Renaissance tells us that Petrarch and Poggio rediscovered the books of antiquity that had been copied for centuries in medieval abbeys. The re-introduction of Greek science and philosophy, however, began in the twelfth century but occurred mainly in the thirteenth century. These works were first translated into Syriac and Arabic in the eighth and ninth centuries and stored in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. There they were read, used, and commented on by Arab philosophers, of whom the most famous was Averroes (1126–1198), who lived in Cordoba. The translation of his …

Seventeen Pieces: Displacement, Misplacement, And Conservation, Yasmin Merali, Kevork Mourad, Manas Ghanem

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article explores the systemic importance of art in the conservation of images, historical reference, and cultural meaning as displaced victims of humanitarian crises make the transition from the land of their birth to a new country with a different history and cultural landscape. In presenting the work of Kevork Mourad, an artist of Armenian descent displaced from Syria, we show the essential, layered interplay of visceral, lived individual experiences and the historic collective memory of real and imagined pasts that survive the destruction of physical artifacts.

The Troubled Backstory Of The Twenty-Fifth Amendment: The Photo, The Feud, And The Secret Service, Garrison Nelson, Brenna M. Rosen

New England Journal of Public Policy

The 1963 murder of President John F. Kennedy led to a reconsideration of the 1947 Presidential Succession Act, which mandated that the Speaker of the US House of Representatives was next in line to the vice president and the Senate president pro tempore was next in line to the Speaker. The new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, was only fifty-five when he took the oath of office on November 22, 1963, but he had a well-known heart condition that would end his life nine years later. Seated behind Johnson when he met with Congress was the soon-to-be seventy-two-year old House Speaker …