Research Library

Since the first reports of the coronavirus surfaced in China two months ago, Baker Institute experts have provided a range of perspectives on the impact of a growing viral outbreak. Follow the links below for their most recent commentaries, and check back for regular updates as the situation develops in the U.S. and abroad.

On Aug. 11, the Santa Cruz province of Argentina will hold elections for its governor and legislature. Fellow Mark P. Jones reviews the province’s Peronist history and discusses the impact of these elections on Argentina as a whole: https://bit.ly/2YrStjP

Over the last few months, five provinces in Argentina held local gubernatorial elections. In a new Forbes blog post, fellow Mark P. Jones recaps the elections and discusses their impact on national politics and energy policy: https://bit.ly/2S3MAnk

Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego province will hold local elections on June 16, 2019. Although the incumbent governor, Rosana Bertone, is favored to win, there is an outside chance that a radical left-wing candidate could be victorious, writes fellow Mark P. Jones for Forbes: https://bit.ly/2Ra4GU7

Saudi Arabia recently ended its legal ban on women driving. The long-term consequences of this change on transportation, energy, labor, and health remain unclear, write fellows Farhan Majid and Jim Krane in an op-ed for the Houston Chronicle: https://bit.ly/2Lrqnja

Social media is becoming more and more a part of the daily political process. From a political science perspective, the ability to capture the ideology of elites and citizens using a common platform greatly helps in answering a very important question: which party’s ideological position is closest to that of its supporters, on a left-right ideology scale? Research scholar Abdullah Aydogan analyzes the tweets of four major Turkish political parties to answer this question in a post for the Baker Institute Blog.

This blog post examines four factors of globalization that make Texas a “ground zero” for new infectious tropical diseases and outlines steps the state must take to better mitigate global health threats.

Latin America Initiative director Erika de la Garza blogs on the murder of Honduras activist Berta Cáceres, who was in Houston last November to receive an award for her work on behalf of Honduras’ indigenous communities.

After more than half a century of a highly restrictive policy toward Cuba that ranged from an economic embargo to prohibiting most travel by U.S. citizens to the island, President Obama announced on Dec. 17, 2014, that Washington and Havana hope to restore diplomatic relations in the near future. While President Obama's new Cuba policy falls short of lifting the embargo, which can only be done through congressional action, it nonetheless represents a historic shift in U.S. relations and leadership in Latin America.