Danielle Allen
James Bryant Conant University Professor
Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation
Renovating our democratic institutions for the 21st century.
The Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation aims to reinforce democracy through strengthening institutions, building interpersonal and informational trust, and reducing hyper-partisan affective polarization with research and field-building. Our multidisciplinary community of scholars, practitioners, and partner organizations work together to shepherd concepts and reforms into practice — to translate research into impact. From community-led initiatives to national-level policies and structural reforms, the Allen Lab works to renovate American democracy.
Our Vision: Justice is achieved by means of democracy: through robust political equality, fully inclusive institutions, and broad avenues for participation and connectedness, all of which rest on and support the material and social bases for human flourishing.
Our Mission: The Allen Lab develops the policy innovations needed to achieve healthy democracy in the 21st century. Our applied research converts the theory of power sharing liberalism into reality. Healthy democracy in the 21st century must deliver responsive representation and effective decision-making for large, complex, digitally-powered societies with significant heterogeneity operating in a globalized economy.
Research Workstreams
The lab currently supports four key research workstreams:
- New Political Economy: Develop exemplary policies in support of a new paradigm in political economy that prioritizes equal dignity, voice, community, sustainability, and social relations free from domination. We call this paradigm power-sharing liberalism. The policies that embody this paradigm draw on the benefits of markets, civil society organizations, and the public sector, deploying diverse combinations of these forms of human coordination to solve public goods problems.
- Technology and Democracy: Research and develop policies such that public and private sector AI governance policy is democracy sustaining, industry is defined by professional norms that lead to technology development supportive of human pluralism, and the pool of people able to bring merged ethical and technical expertise into policy spaces and industry meets the need. Learn more about our work here.
- Civic Education Policy: Advance policy to ensure high quality universal civic learning, where excellent civic learning opportunities are available in the K-12, higher education, and life-long learning sectors and shared across political divides.
- Governance Mechanisms: Develop innovative solutions to tough policy problems that are stuck due to systemic democratic failures. These select projects cross the three sectors vital to healthy democracy—political institutions, civil society, and civic culture. Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century, a report of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, provides the basis for this workstream.
Our work is carried out through the identification and development of exemplary policies that permit further testing and refinement of the power-sharing liberalism paradigm. The Lab is committed to supporting the development of emerging scholars and thought leaders, and our organizational structure reflects this commitment. Lab activities to support the development of emblematic policy solutions include team-based research collaborations (staffed by undergraduate and graduate level research assistants), independent Fellow-driven research, an active professional learning community, regular lab meetings and workshops, publications and special stakeholder convenings.
Lab Staff
Darshan Goux
Senior Lab Director, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation
Sarah Hubbard
Associate Director for Technology & Democracy, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation
Priyanka Sethy
Lab Program Manager, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation;
Doctoral student, Harvard Gov Department
Lab Members
Ben Barsky
Doctoral Student, Harvard Chan School of Public Health
Sofia Corona
Researcher, Harvard College
Owen Ebose
Researcher, Harvard College
Ami Fields-Meyer
Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation
July 2024-June 2025
Brian Highsmith
Doctoral Student, Harvard Government Department
David Knight
Principal Investigator;
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Columbia University
Hannah Kunzman
Researcher;
Doctoral Student, Harvard Government Department
Cristopher Moore
Visiting Scholar
Alexander Pascal
Senior Fellow, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation
Charlotte Ritz-Jack
Researcher, Harvard College
Allison Stanger
Non-resident Senior Fellow, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation;
Co-Director and Co-Investigator, GETTING-Plurality Research Network
Andrei Stupu
Fulbright Doctoral Researcher, August 2024-May 2025
Shlomit Wagman
Faculty Associate, Berkman-Klein Center, Harvard Law School & Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School
Lab Alumni
Eli Frankel
Researcher, Harvard College
Woojin Lim
Researcher, Harvard College
Christian Schmidt
Researcher;
Master in Urban Planning Candidate, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Jama Willis
Communications, Harvard College
The Latest News and Research
Additional Resource
The Role of AI in the 2024 Elections
The year 2024 was dubbed “the largest election year in global history” with half the world’s population voting in national elections. Earlier this year, we hosted an event on AI and the 2024 Elections where scholars spoke about the potential influence of artificial intelligence on the election cycle– from misinformation to threats on election infrastructure. This webinar offered a reflection and exploration of the impacts of technology on the 2024 election landscape.
Political Economy of AI Essay Collection
Earlier this year, the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation hosted a convening on the Political Economy of AI. This collection of essays from leading scholars and experts raise critical questions surrounding power, governance, and democracy as they consider how technology can better serve the public interest.
Additional Resource
Watching the Generative AI Hype Bubble Deflate
As a part of the Allen Lab’s Political Economy of AI Essay Collection, David Gray Widder and Mar Hicks draw on the history of tech hype cycles to warn against the harmful effects of the current generative AI bubble.
Additional Resource
AI and Practicing Democracy
As a part of the Allen Lab’s Political Economy of AI Essay Collection, Emily S Lin and Marshall Ganz call on us to reckon with how humans create, exercise, and structure power, in hopes of meeting our current technological moment in a way that aligns with our values.
Additional Resource
AI, Digital Sovereignty, and the EU’s Path Forward: A Case for Mission-Oriented Industrial Policy
As a part of the Allen Lab’s Political Economy of AI Essay Collection, Tessel van Oirsouw explores how the EU should pursue “mission-oriented industrial policy” to align its technological development with its cross-sector strategic objectives.
Additional Resource
Medicare Advantage as Asset Management: The Pretense of Care Under Logics of Extraction
As a part of the Allen Lab’s Political Economy of AI Essay Collection, Ajeet Singh explores how AI technologies deployed in the health care sector often orient towards the extraction of greater surplus revenues at the expense of patient health.
Additional Resource
Cooperative Paradigms for Artificial Intelligence
As a part of the Allen Lab’s Political Economy of AI Essay Collection, Sarah Hubbard explores alternative ownership and governance structures for artificial intelligence that may better serve the public interest.
Commentary
Sunset and Renew: Section 230 Should Protect Human Speech, Not Algorithmic Virality
Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation Senior Fellow Allison Stanger, in collaboration with Jaron Lanier and Audrey Tang, advocate for a “repeal and renew” approach to Section 230 in an effort to reform the current social media ecosystem.
Video
Can Higher Education Help Renovate American Democracy?
The Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation hosted a webinar with several panelists to discuss a host of new campus initiatives that offer promising pathways for higher education to reassert its vital role in strengthening democracy by engaging students’ civic learning and supporting their development as civic actors.
Commentary
Tech Policy that (Actually) Serves the People
Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation Fellow Ami Fields-Meyer lays out research questions for developing a new U.S. tech policy agenda that puts people first.
Occasional Paper
The National Security Case for Public AI
Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation Fellow Alex Pascal and Vanderbilt Law Professor Ganesh Sitaraman make the case that public options for AI and public utility-style regulation of AI will enhance national security by ensuring innovation and competition, preventing abuses of power and conflicts of interest, and advancing public interest and national security goals.
Video
Building a Digital Democracy with Audrey Tang and Megan Smith
The “Building a Digital Democracy” panel brought together Audrey Tang, Megan Smith, Professor Danielle Allen, and Professor Mathias Risse for a conversation on how technology is being used to transform our political institutions.
Commentary
GETTING-Plurality Public Comment on U.S. AI Safety Institute Guidance
The GETTING-Plurality Research Network recently submitted a public comment on the NIST U.S. AI Safety Institute’s “Managing Misuse Risk for Dual-Use Foundation Models” draft guidance. The full text of the public comment can be found below.
Podcast
Conference on the Political Economy of AI Podcast Episodes
Check out the podcast episodes from the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation’s Conference on the Political Economy of AI to glean insights from each panel.
Occasional Paper
Beyond the Sound and Fury: The Landscape of Curricular Contestation in Texas
In this new Occasional Paper from the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, Hannah Kunzman and Danielle Allen offer a case study on contestation over K–12 civics curriculum in Texas.