Kishore Jayabalan

Kishore Jayabalan is director of Istituto Acton, the Acton Institute's Rome office. Formerly, he worked for the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace as the lead policy analyst on sustainable development and arms control. Kishore Jayabalan earned a B.A. in political science and economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In college, he was executive editor of The Michigan Review and an economic policy intern for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He worked as an international economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, D.C. and then graduated with an M.A. in political science from the University of Toronto. While in Toronto, Kishore interned in the university's Newman Centre, which led to his appointment to the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations in New York. Two years later, he returned to Rome to work for the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace as the Holy See's lead policy analyst on sustainable development and arms control. As director of Istituto Acton, Kishore organizes the institute's educational and outreach efforts in Rome and throughout Europe.

Posts by Kishore Jayabalan

Letter from Rome: The end of fusionism?

The American political writer Frank S. Meyer is known as the father of “fusionism,” which is usually defined as the synthesis between traditionalist and libertarian thought in modern conservatism. In practical political terms, it brought together social conservatives, free-market advocates, and proponents of a strong national defense to fight against Communism abroad and the welfare state at home and formed the basis of Ronald Reagan’s governing coalition, as well as of think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and the Acton Institute. Continue Reading...

Can Human Ecology Harm Humans?

That’s one of the questions that comes to mind when reading Bill McGurn’s op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal. Many free-market advocates, including yours truly, have already expressed concern over what may appear in the papal encyclical due this summer. Continue Reading...

When Caesar Meets Peter

Although religion and politics are not supposed to be discussed in polite company, they are nearly impossible to ignore. We try to do so in order to avoid heated, never-ending arguments, preferring to “agree to disagree” on the most contentious ones. Continue Reading...

When Economic Moralism Clashes with Reality

With the November 26 publication of Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, we have the first teaching document that is truly his own. And it very much shows, both in style and content, compared to the encyclical Lumen Fidei, which was mostly written by Pope Benedict XVI. Continue Reading...

Pope Benedict Resigns

Shock waves went through Rome at about noon today and the rest of the Catholic, make that the entire, world, as news came that Pope Benedict XVI will resign as Pope on February 28. Continue Reading...

Are Islam and Liberal Democracy Compatible?

This was the topic of our latest Campus Martius discussion group at the Istituto Acton office in Rome. Our guest speaker was law professor David Forte, who presented some of the challenges in furthering liberal democracy in Muslim-majority countries. Continue Reading...