2021 Spring Edition: Power in the 21st Century

Letter from the Editor
April 15, 2020

Standing atop a car, arm outstretched, and finger pointed to the sky, Alaa Salah sang with the protestors in Khartoum, demanding the Sudanese government end years of authoritarian rule. The surrounding sea of fellow protestors cheered her on, phones out and snapping pictures and videos. 

However, no one may even have heard of Salah had her fellow activist, Lana Haroun, not caught her in this picturesque moment. Salah may have been just one of myriad protestors during last year’s “Sudanese Revolution,” but Haroun’s picture, after going viral on social media, made Salah the face of the protests that saw the ouster of Omar al-Bashir.

Salah’s story is one of many of how new trends in the 21st can elevate individuals and movements to places of power. For instance, our launch speaker this year, DC At-Large Councilmember David Grosso, spoke about how social media is giving a louder voice to underrepresented communities in the United States.

At the same time, we must be wary of malicious forces leveraging these trends for their own goals. In the United States, white supremacist groups exploit online platforms from chatrooms to Amazon self-publishing services to disseminate their ideologies. With the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world, some extremist groups have encouraged their supporters to promote the virus’s spread.

Will the pandemic bring new trends or only amplify existing ones? Indeed, Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, must adapt to campaigning exclusively online, arguably an extension of the trends we have seen developing for years now.

Yet as activist Ezra Levin reminded us when we launched this year’s theme, there is no substitute for showing up in person to knock on doors and organize constituents. Perhaps, then, the heightened connectivity and accessibility of the 21st century world will only facilitate our traditional activities, not completely revolutionize them.

Last year’s theme asked us to think local about international problems. Movements of refugees affect many countries, but how do the localities they arrive at deal with them? While poverty is a global problem, local communities are the first resort for people in need. 

This year, we challenge academics, students, and policy practitioners to go a level deeper, to examine the power dynamics behind these problems and their proposed solutions. Our theme – Power in the 21st Century – urges us to assess and reassess which groups and individuals are included or excluded in the policymaking process and how policy actors may exercise their influence.

We hope this year’s Spring Edition will advance our knowledge on these issues and make us revisit the power dynamics of our times. We are grateful to our authors, reviewers, editors, and staff, without whom none of this would be possible.

Ido Levy

Editor-in-Chief

Letter from the Spring Edition Launch Speaker:
D.C. City Councilman David Grosso
April 15, 2020

Congratulations on the publication of the Georgetown Public Policy Review 2019-20 Spring Edition: Power in the 21st Century.

The theme – the question of how political power is shaped by the digital age in this century - is more important than ever to consider as we add another layer of complexity: the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

In the past decade, movements such as Me Too and Black Lives Matter have been able to leverage technology and the Internet to amplify their agendas. However, barriers to these technologies continue to leave out the voices of those that have already traditionally been ignored. The ongoing public health emergency has forced public education to technological platforms where students who are separated from schools, libraries, and public Wi-Fi are being left behind. All of us, as students of public policy, must grapple with these issues and even the basic question of how residents can connect with their government during this crisis.

I have always approached public policy from a human rights and racial equity framework. I believe that approaching policy through these lenses will allow us to address the failures of public policy to help the most vulnerable that this pandemic has highlighted.

Once again, I congratulate you on adapting in challenging times and finding ways to successfully launch your publication. I hope you and your classmates will continue to pursue answers to the good questions you have raised and to look at shifting power dynamics and the potential that’s out there to do things better.

David Grosso

Councilmember, At-Large
Chairperson, Committee on Education
Council of the District of Columbia