Social Sciences

Explore faculty and student work in economics, sociology, political science, anthropology, and other disciplines shaping our understanding of society.

FAS Overhaul Brings Deep Cuts to Social Sciences, Phillips Brooks House

After a final round of layoffs, University leaders say 165 staff jobs were eliminated across the division.

by Lydialyle Gibson

Harvard studies how spirituality affects patients’ experience at the end of life

A Harvard initiative studies how spirituality affects patients’ experience at the end of life

How surveillance changes people’s behavior

Assaults on privacy and security in America threaten democracy itself.

by Jonathan Shaw

Open Book: Bare-Knuckle Politics

Contentious American democracy—in a new case-method history book

Michael Klarman reinterprets the American founding

The anti-democratic origins of the Constitution

by Lincoln Caplan

Ukrainian-language collections housed at Harvard

One of the largest Ukrainian-language collections in the world, housed at Harvard

by Marina N. Bolotnikova

Center for Health and Happiness established at Harvard

Research aims to discover whether happiness improves physical health.

by Elizabeth Gudrais

Global Health at Home offers innovative techniques to improve U.S. medical care

Harvesting innovations from around the world to improve American medical care

by Howard Hiatt , Charles Kenney , Mark Rosenberg

Death penalty critiqued by Carol and Jordan Steiker

Sibling scholars Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker seek to change how America thinks about capital punishment.

by Lincoln Caplan

James Kloppenberg's masterwork on democracy reviewed

Reviewing a masterwork on the past, and future, of democracy

What leads executives to break the law?

Business leaders explain how they went astray.

by Jonathan Shaw