Author: TheConversation

By James D. Long, Professor of Political Science and Co-founder of the Political Economy Forum, University of Washington The death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, announced on February 16, 2024, laid bare to the world the costs of political persecutions. Although his cause of death remains unknown, the 47-year-old died while serving a 19-year sentence in a Siberian penal colony. “Three days ago, Vladimir Putin killed my husband,” said Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, in a Feb. 19 video. As an anti-corruption activist turned opposition leader, Navalny shone a light on the brutal excesses of President Putin’s regime. Like Navalny,...

By Donovan Schaefer, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania In October 2023, nearly seven years after the deadly Unite the Right white supremacist rally, the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, was melted down. Since then, two more major Confederate monuments have been removed: the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery and the Monument to the Women of the Confederacy in Jacksonville, Florida. Defenders of Confederate monuments have argued that the statues should be left standing to educate future generations. One such defender is former President Donald Trump, the likely GOP presidential nominee...

By Joshua F.J. Inwood, Professor of Geography and Senior Research Associate in the Rock Ethics Institute, Penn State; Derek H. Alderman, Professor of Geography, University of Tennessee When historian Carter Woodson created “Negro History Week” in 1926, which became “Black History Month” in 1976, he sought not to just celebrate prominent Black historical figures but to transform how white America saw and valued all African Americans. However, many issues in the history of Black Americans can get lost in a focus on well-known historical figures or other important events. Our research looks at how African American communities struggling for...

By Sian Mughan, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, Arizona State University; and Akheil Singla, Assistant Professor at the School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University When city governments spend more money than they take in, officials often search for ways to generate revenue. One increasingly common source of money is traffic tickets. And research shows police officers issue more traffic tickets when cities are financially in a deficit. But police represent only one aspect of this revenue-generating system. Judges and their courts also use traffic citations to generate money for the cities that employ them. As scholars of public...

By Jessica Trisko Darden, Associate Professor of Political Science, Virginia Commonwealth University As the toll of the Israel-Hamas war continues to mount, Israeli military casualties are shedding new light on a topic that rarely gets international media attention, Israel’s ethnic diversity. In Israel’s single largest casualty event since the Gaza invasion began in October 2023, 21 Israeli soldiers were killed in an explosion on January 22, 2024. Among the dead was reserve soldier Sgt. 1st Class Cedrick Garin, a 23-year-old Filipino-Israeli whose mother came to the country to work before he was born. Earlier in the war, Staff Sgt....