Feature
As we celebrate America’s 250th, the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation is reflecting on how we arrived at this moment and where we are headed.
The resources below take stock of this historic moment—from civic culture to political economy to the rapid changes in technology which influence the everyday infrastructure of democracy—and ask what is possible. The books, articles, courses and videos below help us make sense of the past, present, and future possibilities for renovating democracy at 250.
Our constitutional democracy is like an old house—built by others, inherited by us, shaping our future possibilities. The challenge of democracy renovation is to understand which parts of the structure remain strong, which need repair, and where new rooms—or even new floor plans—are needed. Not only that but technology has transformed what is possible for how we build—as well as introducing major new challenges for shared flourishing. Democracy renovation is about designing for a future that is still under human and democratic control."![Headshot of Danielle Allen]()
Danielle Allen
Professor of Public Policy, James Bryant Conant University Professor
Danielle Allen (Book)
Allen reveals that the Age of Revolution began earlier than we thought in Britain itself. She has uncovered the little-known story of a reform-minded British aristocrat who shaped his nation’s path in turbulent times, and whose friendship with Thomas Paine turned to bitter rivalry.
Eric Liu (Book) 
Liu offers eight practices for everyday action in our civic lives to rekindle our belief in democracy and our own humanity.
Julia Angwin and Ami Fields-Meyer (Book)
Allen Lab Senior Fellow Ami Fields-Meyer and Julia Angwin offer an inspiring resource for political courage to defy authoritarianism.
Malcolm Salter (Book)
Salter reflects on how pervasive cronyism and restricted suffrage are destroying democratic capitalism. Drawing on Allen’s principles of political equality, reciprocity, and power sharing, he lays out practical steps for how to make economic and political markets more democratic.
Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff (Book)
Slobodian and Tarnoff examine “Muskism” and how the political economy of extreme wealth, technology, and ideology is reshaping power.
The Friends of Attention (Book)
The authors push back against the commodification of human attention that is detrimental to both our humanity and the foundations of our democracy. Allen calls it a “…declaration of independence from tech’s tyranny over our human spirits.”
Paul O. Carrese (Book)
Carrese makes the case for “reflective patriotism,” a love for country enough to teach its ideals and failures honestly, in American education.
Pope Leo XIV
Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical argues that technology is not neutral; human dignity and broad participation should prevail over concentrated private power.
InnovateUS, the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, and The GovLab (Course)
This open, self-paced course is designed to equip public servants with the skills to learn from meaningful engagement with communities, and how artificial intelligence can responsibly support the process.
Videos
The After Neoliberalism: From Left to Right conference, hosted by the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, convened leading thinkers across the political spectrum to explore and debate emerging visions for the future of the political economy.
Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders (Book)
Schneier and Sanders survey how AI will reshape our democracy, from campaigns to lawmaking, and how we can steer it toward more participatory and democratic ends.
Beth Noveck (Book)
Noveck outlines how AI can be used to strengthen democracy by widening participation and rebuilding public institutions that work for people.
Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation (Article)
In this Nature Human Behaviour article, several Allen Lab GETTING-Plurality Research Network members contribute to mapping out how advanced AI systems could destabilize or support the mechanisms on which democracy is based.
Leading artificial intelligence companies, OpenAI and Anthropic, propose how frontier AI systems should be governed. These proposals illustrate different ideas and federal frameworks at a tumultuous moment for national AI policy.
Sarah Hubbard is a researcher at the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. Her research focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence, democracy, and civic life.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) alone and do not necessarily represent the positions of the Ash Center or its affiliates.
Commentary
Allen Lab Fellow Tyler Fisher examines the untapped potential of city charters as a vehicle for deliberative democracy, arguing that advocates should work to embed tools like citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, and town meetings directly into the governing architecture of cities, institutionalizing deliberative democracy one municipality at a time.
Q+A
Allen uncovers the deep—then volatile—friendship between a British duke and Thomas Paine.
Commentary
Allen Lab member Charlie Covit reflects on the After Neoliberalism conference and examines the intersection of artificial intelligence and the future of work, arguing that AI forces a democratic reckoning with the meaning of labor itself and that an economy which generates abundance while stripping citizens of purpose and dignity undermines the very foundation of democratic life.
Q+A
Allen uncovers the deep—then volatile—friendship between a British duke and Thomas Paine.
Video
Exploring Ash Center perspectives on the meaning of democracy, democratic participation and citizenship, and how democratic life might evolve over the next 250 years.
Q+A
As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, its founding principles—and its enduring contradictions—continue to provoke reflection and debate. In this conversation, Alex Keyssar, historian and Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, discusses the historical circumstances in which the Declaration was written, the ideals it sought to articulate, how its meaning has evolved over time, and the tensions between its soaring language and the realities of slavery, inequality, and political compromise.
