COVID-19 vaccination presents a picture of inequality: about 51% of the world’s vaccines are in the hands of 14% of the global population. Between and within countries, the distribution of vaccines has reflected existing racial and socioeconomic hierarchies rather than allocations that would maximise collective social welfare. Many countries see this as a contest. As a result, ‘winners’ order […]
Perceptions of government inaction or political interference with trials and regulatory approval may foster doubts about safety, write Barry Eichengreen, Cevat Giray Aksoy and Orkun Saka.
Monday, 9 November brought welcome news from Pfizer about the successful Phase 3 trial of what appears to be a 90 per cent effective COVID-19 vaccine. Stock markets reacted with elation, seeming to declare […]
In Kept From All Contagion: Germ Theory, Disease, and the Dilemma of Human Contact in Late Nineteenth-Century Literature, Kari Nixon offers a new literary history exploring how late-nineteenth-century authors represented the conflict between the risk of contagion and vital social contact in a period which saw germ theory rise to public prominence. This is a skilled literary analysis for our time, […]
A COVID-19 vaccine appears to be the only way out of repeated lockdowns – yet in the UK and US, where trust in governments’ handling of the pandemic is already low, many people are minded to refuse it. Rebecca Forman and Lucy Thompson (LSE) set out what a proactive vaccination campaign would look like.
Since the virus emerged onto the […]
Thirty years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed by Congress with the aim of addressing the persistent social and economic marginalization of disabled Americans. But, writes David Pettinicchio, weak enforcement and narrow interpretations of the ADA have since limited its effectiveness. He argues that the ADA was only the beginning: now we must extend its values […]
Despite what most of the public may think, the vast majority of policymaking by the federal government comes in the form of rules and regulations rather than through new laws. Using the 2010 Affordable Care Act as a case study, Simon F. Haeder and Susan Webb Yackee write that the move from law-based to regulatory policymaking has given Democratic […]
In The Anthropology of Epidemics, editors Ann H. Kelly, Frédéric Keck and Christos Lynteris curate a collection that provides insight into how ethnographic studies of epidemics might challenge the central assumptions of not only anthropology, but social theory writ large. The volume offers a rich exploration into how, and to what end, ethnographic attention to epidemics can extend social […]
In The Cigarette: A Political History, Sarah Milov intricately unpacks the historical workings of the US tobacco industry through its interactions with farmers, labourers and social movements to show that it has been more vulnerable and open to challenge than often thought. In revealing how the tobacco industry and tobacco control activists engaged in the institutions of everyday life […]
Poor public health policy leads to deeper distrust, further undermining the effectiveness of public health policy, write Cevat Giray Aksoy, Barry Eichengreen and Orkun Saka.
It is widely argued (by, inter alia, Fukyuama 2020) that the keys to success in dealing with COVID-19 are “whether citizens trust their leaders, and whether those leaders preside over a competent and effective state.” By […]
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Book Review: White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo
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Charles Dunst reviews Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacyby Stephen Wertheim
Rosie Hamilton reviews Humankind: A Hopeful Historyby Rutger Bregmans
Rémy-Paulin Twahirwa reviews The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelagoby Alison Mountz
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What US policymakers can learn from how the EU tackles poverty among single-parent families
What US policymakers can learn from how the EU tackles poverty among single-parent families
Nearly a quarter of children in the US live in a single-parent family, and a substantial number of these families experience in-work and unemployment-related poverty. Amanda Sheely and Laurie Maldonado look at what lessons US policymakers can learn from the European Union to improve the lives of single parents, such as supporting them back into employment where possible and introducing policies which support the roles of both parents.
The situation of single […]