On May 3, 2017, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and Yes Europe Lab hosted Luigi Di Maio, Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies in the Italian Parliament and a leader of the Five Star Movement, Italy's leading opposition political party.  Archon Fung, Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship and HKS Academic Dean provided opening remarks. … Read more about Video & Text: A Conversation with Luigi Di Maio

Spring 2017 Innovation Field Lab students impress mayors, city officials and instructors with innovation packages. … Read more about Students’ Final Presentations Exemplify Success of Innovation Course

By now, most are familiar with the trope expounding on the transformative power of data in our society today. We see its manifestation in nearly every part of our lives, from how we shop for goods to the route we take on the commute to work or school. For cities, the impact of data has the potential to be no less transformational, and city halls around the country are grappling with how best to integrate this seemingly endless array of information into their decision-making processes. Increasingly, the job of making sense of and harnessing this data to improve governance is falling to a new category of city hall staffer: the chief data officer (CDO).… Read more about Civic Analytics Network: Helping Cities Unlock the Power of Data

In 2016, for every dollar earned by men, women in the Greater Boston Area earned 77 cents, according to a recent report from the Boston Women’s Workforce Council. The city could wait for the wage gap to close over time — estimates by the American Association of University Women say the US will reach equity around 2152, or do something about it. For MaryRose Mazzola MPP ’15, doing nothing has never been an option, and today she is actively involved in closing Boston’s wage gap as executive director of the Boston Women’s Workforce Council.

The Boston Women’s Workforce Council was… Read more about Closing the Wage Gap: Ash Alum Using Data to Make “Women’s Issue” Everyone’s Issue

Over half a century after the assassination of Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba —  the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is still waiting for its first peaceful transition of political power. 

Though Congo’s constitution required the country’s current president Joseph Kabila to step down from office last December as his second five-year term as president ended, elections have again been postponed — and few observers have faith that voting will take place anytime soon. Among this group is Tom O’Bryan MPP ’17,… Read more about Student Focus: Promoting Democracy in the Congo

We sat down with Democracy Fellow LaGina Gause to discuss her research on how legislatures respond to protests.… Read more about Democracy Fellows Spotlight: Q&A with LaGina Gause

As Turkey prepares to head to the polls to vote on a package of amendments to the Turkish constitution, we sat down with Dr. Amanda Sloat, a fellow with the Ash Center's Democracy in Hard Places Initiative and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Southern Europe and Eastern Mediterranean Affairs at the State Department to discuss the referendum and its impact on the future of democracy in Turkey. … Read more about Amanda Sloat on Turkey's Constitutional Referendum, Erdogan, and Democratic Backsliding

In advance of Chinese President Xi  Jinping's first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, we sat down with Edward Cunningham, China Programs director at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation to discuss China, Trump, and climate change. 

How has China reacted to the Trump Administration’s recently announced plans to roll back many Obama-era regulations aimed at limiting CO2 emissions?
 
China’s President Xi has clearly signaled that China intends to position itself as the political center of gravity when it… Read more about China, Trump, and Climate Change: A Discussion with Edward Cunningham

In advance of Chinese President Xi  Jinping's first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, we sat down with Odd Arne Westad the S.T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations at Harvard University to discuss China's growing role in the Asia-Pacific Region. … Read more about Arne Westad on Trump, Xi, and the Future of the Asia

In advance of Chinese President Xi  Jinping's first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, we sat down with Tony Saich, the director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and Daewoo Professor of International Affairs at HKS to discuss the state of U.S.-China relations. … Read more about Tony Saich on Xi, Trump, and the future of U.S.-China Relations

President Obama’s unprecedented decision to commute the sentences of nearly 1,500 federal inmates incarcerated on low-level drug offenses has given a second chance to those on the receiving end of disproportionate sentences handed down at the height of the war on drugs and allowed them and their families to begin the process of rebuilding their lives. For Teresa Acuña, mid-career MPA 2017 and the Roy and Lila Ash Fellow at the Ash Center, her experience as a legislative aide and advocate would intersect in an intensely personal manner with President Obama’s efforts to undo some of the social damage wrought by this decades-long war on drugs.  

A Q&A with Maya Sen

With Congress set to kick off confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch, the Ash Center sat down with Maya Sen, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Sen’s research interests include the American legal system and politics. She is the author of several recent papers on political ideology and politicization in the judiciary.

… Read more about The Political Science Perspective: Judge Neil Gorsuch & the Supreme Court of the United States

In light of contemporary conversations about immigration, the Ash Center sat down with Moshik Temkin, an Associate Professor of Public Policy and a specialist in the history of the modern United States in global and comparative perspective, to talk about the history of immigration in the US and what it can teach us about modern debates and policy.

… Read more about A Historical Context for Immigration Policy and Sentiment Today: Q&A with Moshik Temkin

By Katie Gibson

How do Americans evaluate potential candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court? More specifically, do political opinions make a difference in how citizens evaluate the branch of government that is supposed to be impartial?

According to Maya Sen, assistant professor of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), the answer is yes.

Sen’s latest paper, “How Political Signals Affect Public Support for Judicial Nominations,” uncovers evidence to suggest that Americans place high importance on the political leanings of Supreme Court candidates. Although… Read more about Judging the Bench

Experts Provide A Modern Analysis & Historical Perspective at JFK Jr. Forum Event 

President Trump’s controversial executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries immediately raised howls of protests from politicians, activists, and the media. Harvard’s President Drew Faust put it succinctly when she said, “[the] executive order imposing restrictions on travel to the United States has provoked uncertainty and escalating anxiety among many people.” At Harvard Kennedy School, students and faculty grappled with the order’s implications and whether it was likely to achieve its stated goal of deterring possible future terrorist attacks.

… Read more about Trump’s Executive Order on Immigration

by Doug Gavel

Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Center for International Development (CID) are ranked atop the best university-affiliated research centers in the world.

The rankings appear in the latest edition of the Global Go To Think Tank Index Report, produced annually for the past decade by James McGann, director of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Lauder Institute. The goal of the Index, he said, “is to increase the profile and performance of think tanks and raise the public awareness of the important role think tanks play in governments and civil societies around the globe.”… Read more about Three HKS centers ranked among world's best university-affiliated research centers

The Ash Center sat down with Professor Arne Westad, the S.T. Lee Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations at HKS to discuss what Donald Trump’s ascension to the White House means for U.S. relations in Asia and how the region’s leaders are reacting to his election.

During the campaign, Trump sent very mixed signals regarding his intentions towards the Asia-Pacific region.  He suggested at various times that the United States would reconsider its defense umbrella in South Korea and Japan, pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, but also more aggressively… Read more about Trump, China, and the Future of U.S. Interests in the Asia-Pacific Region

A subsistence farmer in Indonesia. A disabled US veteran. An orphaned child living in a Mumbai slum. A woman giving birth in a remote part of Malawi. Each may rely on government services or outside aid agencies to provide basic services like health care or education. But too often these services are inadequate and unresponsive to their needs. Among the many reasons are corruption, inefficiency, and simple lack of dedication and effort — the kinds of problems that too often prove difficult for governments and donors to solve.

How can governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),… Read more about Change from the Bottom Up: Examining the Potential for Citizen-led Action to Improve Health Outcomes

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election as President of the United States, the Ash Center sat down with senior non-residential fellow Peter Quilter to discuss what Trump’s ascension to the White House means for U.S. relations in Latin America and the future of democracy in the region.

How has the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States been received throughout Latin America?

With as much trepidation as everywhere else.  Of course the well-wishing phone calls to Trump have poured in from countries all over the Americas, but that should… Read more about Trump and the Future of Democracy in Latin America

In October, as part of its Race and American Politics seminar series, the Ash Center collaborated with HKS Assistant Professor of Public Policy Leah Wright Rigueur, an Ash Center faculty affiliate, to organize a Conference on Race and Justice in the Age of Obama. Attended by over 300 people over the course of two days, the event offered a unique and important opportunity for scholars, journalists, and public officials to debate President Obama's impact on race relations in the United States during his eight years in office.