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When companies or individuals make investments in a business in another country, experts call this “foreign direct investment.” Today, China is the fastest growing source of such investments. From the early 1990s to 2015, Chinese and Hong Kong’s foreign direct investments increased from a few hundred million to $2.5 trillion...

Populist political movements, right and left, are on the rise across the globe. Debates rage about the roots and consequences of these movements, but little attention has been paid to the consequences of populist governments, including those on the left, for gender equality and reproductive rights. Our recent study of...

Egg and sperm donations in the United States have long proceeded under the cloak of secrecy. Twenty-five years ago, when I first started interviewing patients who used donors to conceive a child, many intended parents struggled with whether eventually to tell their child about the nature of his or her...

International law is in a rough period. Since 2016 institutions as varied as the European Court of Human Rights, the World Trade Organization, and the International Criminal Court have been harshly criticized by politicians chafing at their strictures. The reasons for growing dissatisfaction vary. Africans unhappy with human rights prosecutions...

Many citizens in Europe and the United States believe that the quality of democracy has declined over the last few decades. Political cartelization and patronage-oriented styles of governance can help explain how parties collude to survive as public debates narrow and the grassroots bases of parties wither. Global development ties...

Contraception is complicated. Reproductive health scholars can comfortably weigh the protective benefits of condom use compared to the convenience of intrauterine devices. However, for most people, contraception continues to be a sensitive subject not appropriate for casual conversation – and consequently many Americans lack an adequate understanding of their contraception...

In the 1980s and 1990s, concerns about teen pregnancy voiced by policymakers and pundits helped garner support for welfare reform – as the public reached a consensus that teen pregnancy contributes to poverty and was encouraged by overly lenient welfare programs. Resulting welfare changes in the Personal Responsibility and Work...

Few issues shape the American political landscape more than abortion. In 2012, the Pew Research Center found that 45 percent of Americans cited abortion as either “one among many important issues” or “a critical issue facing the country.” And many politicians take strong stands on the issue as well. Among...

Starting in late April of 2018, the small Central American country Nicaragua entered the media spotlight as massive street protests rocked the decade-long authoritarian regime of President Daniel Ortega. Brutal government repression has killed over 200 and led to intensified calls for Ortega to step down. Although nobody could have...

From the U.S. travel ban to the rise of anti-immigrant populists in Europe, politicians often decry migration in times of moral and economic crisis. Controversies can easily preclude a balanced understanding of what migration means – not only for immigrants and their new societies, but also for the places migrants...