A Disaster Management in Asia Seminar Series Event
Margie Mason, Acting Vietnam Bureau Chief, Associated Press

Margie Mason is the AP’s Acting Bureau Chief in Vietnam and medical writer for the Asia-Pacific region. She has reported from more than 20 countries over the past decade, writing about an array of disasters and global outbreaks. Among other events, she has covered the flooding that recently ravaged Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam; the 2010 floods in Pakistan; Cyclone Nargis, which devastated Myanmar in 2008; and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. In this brownbag talk, Mason will discuss the unique challenges of reporting on these and other disruptive events in the region. Arnold M. Howitt, faculty co-director of the Program on Crisis Leadership will moderate the event.... Read more about Covering Disasters in Southeast Asia: A Reporter’s Perspective

About the Seminar
Please join us as the following four Harvard student recipients of HKS Indonesia Program travel research grants present their work. Justin Brandon and Nicholas Hornig, candidates for a master’s degree in urban planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), will present their research on the Jakarta Bus Rapid Transit system and its failures in mitigating urban traffic congestion in the city. Brandon and Hornig conducted their research under the direction of HKS-GSD Professor José Gómez-Ibañez, and in collaboration with the Indonesia Transportation Society. Eric Dodge and Sinafikeh Gemessa, candidates for a MPP at Harvard Kennedy School will share their experiences serving as interns with the Indonesian Vice-Presidential Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction. Indonesia Research Fellow Akhmad Rizal Shidiq will serve as moderator.... Read more about Traffic Congestion and Poverty Reduction in Indonesia

Peter Erben, Senior Electoral Advisor

About the Seminar
At this seminar, Senior Electoral Advisor Peter Erben will discuss how the 2014 national elections in Indonesia may well present a highly competitive contest and hence a risk of a challenged or even compromised election. This is a risk not only to the investment made in the election itself, but to significant parts of the overall achievements realized since 1998. A relatively minor investment in strengthening the electoral process in Indonesia certainly constitutes a worthwhile insurance against a potential electoral crisis in 2014. A light lunch will be served.... Read more about The Urgent Need for Electoral Reform in Indonesia

Andrea Louise Campbell, MIT

About the Seminar
In this seminar, Professor Campbell shares excerpts from a new book project exploring the nature of Americans’ attitudes toward taxes and the implications for the politics of taxation. First she uses insights from cognitive psychology and behavioral economics to explore the ways in which the designs of taxes and elite rhetoric can obscure individuals’ self-interest and produce tax attitudes that stray from citizens’ material stakes. Armed with this information about how Americans think about taxes, she then takes an over-time perspective in examining why taxes are so prominent in American politics. A confluence of economic and political events raised the salience of taxes and discontent around them, which Republican politicians in particular capitalized upon, taking advantage of Americans’ confusion about taxes to keep the middle class on the tax-cutting band wagon while enacting enormous cuts for the rich. She will conclude the seminar with the implications for the Obama presidency and the meaning of different paths forward.... Read more about How Americans Think about Taxes: Citizens, Elites, and the Politics of Taxation