JFK Jr. Forum, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, MA
***THIS FORUM EVENT WILL BE TICKETED*** Co-sponsored by the Ash Center’s Program on Crisis Leadership
Dr. Michele Pierre-Louis Prime Minister of Haiti (2008-09); IOP Fellow (Fall ’10) President, FOKAL Foundation
Sean Penn Founder, J/P Haitian Relief Organization Ambassador at Large for Haiti
Lieutenant General Ken Keen Commander, Joint Task Force Haiti – Operation Unified Response Military Deputy Commander, U.S. Southern Command, Miami, Florida
Esraa Abdel Fattah, Egyptian Democratic Academy; Ben Moses, Director; Will Dobson, Slate Magazine, and Tarek Masoud, HKS Co-Sponsored by the Middle East Initiative, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
About the Film A Whisper to a Roar tells the heroic stories of courageous democracy activists in five countries around the world – Egypt, Malaysia, Ukraine, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
From student leaders to prime ministers and heads of state, these activists share their compelling personal stories of struggle, past and present, with their countries’ oppressive regimes. Shot over three years and finalized in July 2012 by award-winning filmmaker, Ben Moses, the film was inspired by the work of Stanford University’s Larry Diamond, author of The Spirit of Democracy and Director of Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. For more information about the film, please watch the preview.
124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge, MA
Ellis Goldberg, Professor of Political Science, University of Washington
Co-Sponsored by the Middle East Initiative, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Lunch will be served
About the Speaker Ellis Goldberg is a professor of political science at the University of Washington where he teaches Middle Eastern politics. Most of his work has been on the political economy of Egypt in the 20th century including two monographs, Tinker, Tailor and Textile Worker and Trade, Reputation and Child Labor. His articles have appeared in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and Political Theory. He has been a visiting faculty member at Princeton University, the American University in Cairo and a visiting research fellow at Harvard. He lived in Cairo during the first six months of 2011 where he attended most of the major demonstrations and rallies before and after the collapse of the Mubarak government. He is now working on two books. One is a study of political theory by influential Arab intellectuals and its relation to the revolutionary uprising of 2011. The other is a study of the origins of the concept of the rule of law in Egypt and its impact on the structure of the court system. In 2007 Goldberg was a Carnegie Scholar and in 2012 he is a Guggenheim Fellow.
124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge, MA
Daniel Kreiss, Assistant Professor, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, UNC-Chapel Hill
About the Seminar Drawing on open-ended interviews with more than 60 political staffers, accounts of practitioners, and fieldwork, Daniel Kreiss will present on the previously untold history of the uptake of new media in Democratic electoral campaigning from 2000 to 2012. He has followed a group of technically-skilled Internet staffers who came together on the Howard Dean campaign and created a series of innovations in campaign organization, tools, and practice. After the election, these individuals founded an array of consulting firms and training organizations and staffed a number of prominent Democratic campaigns. In the process, they carried their innovations across Democratic politics and contributed to a number of electoral victories, including Barack Obama’s historic bid for the presidency, and currently occupy senior leadership positions in the president’s re-election campaign. This history provides a lens for understanding the organizations, tools, and practices that shaped the 2012 electoral cycle.... Read more about Taking Our Country Back: The Crafting of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama
124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge, MA
Peter Erben, International Foundation for Electoral Systems
About the Seminar Indonesia, a developing democracy with experience in three rounds of national elections, and Myanmar/Burma, a nascent democracy, are both attempting to embrace the opportunities and manage the political risk of upcoming potentially fiercely competitive elections. The region needs electoral leadership that can inspire under-performing neighbors. Well executed elections can contribute to political stability, credible and effective governance, and ultimately spur growth. Can Indonesia and Myanmar, in each their particular context, overcome their challenges and in time develop to act as regional electoral role models? How can Myanmar learn from the achievements and shortcomings of elections in Indonesia?... Read more about Political Stability at Risk: National Elections in Indonesia 2014 and Myanmar 2015
Panelists Congressman John Sarbanes, U.S. Representative, Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District Stephen Ansolabehere, Professor of Government, Harvard University Archon Fung, Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship, Harvard Kennedy School Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law, Harvard Law School Spencer Overton, Professor of Law, George Washington University Law School
Ambassador Christian Dussey, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Switzerland
In this career brown bag, Ambassador Dussey will discuss his experience leading the Crisis Management Center of the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which coordinates the Swiss government’s crisis response system to major incidents (disasters, political upheavals, terror attacks, hostage situations) affecting its citizens abroad.... Read more about Brown Bag with Ambassador Christian Dussey
Wiener Auditorium, Ground Floor, Taubman Building, HKS
Phineas Baxandall, MASSPIRG; Chuck Collins, Institute for Policy Studies; Archon Fung, HKS Co-sponsored by MASSPIRG
About the Film America is in the grip of a societal economic panic. Lawmakers cry “We’re Broke!” as they slash budget, lay off schoolteachers, police and firefighters, crumbling our country’s social fabric and leaving many Americans scrambling to survive. Meanwhile, multibillion-dollar American corporation like Exxon, Google, and Bank of America are making record profits. And while the deficit climbs and the cuts go deeper, these corporations – with intimate ties to our political leaders – are concealing colossal profits overseas to avoid paying U.S. income tax.
“We’re Not Broke” is the story of how U.S. corporations have been able to hide over a trillion dollars from Uncle Sam, and how seven fed-up Americans from across the country, take their frustration to the streets . . . and vow to make the corporations pay their fair share.
Following the screening, panelists Phineas Baxandall, MASSPIRG; Chuck Collins, Institute for Policy Studies; and Archon Fung, HKS will discuss whether the tools of American democracy have proven powerless in regulating business on the critical issue of taxation.
Wiener Auditorium, Ground Floor, Taubman Building, HKS
Christopher Robichaud, Harvard Kennedy School and Jason Stanley, Rutgers University
About the Seminar Some on the right claim that the mainstream media is ideologically biased. This bias justifies ideological reporting on outlets such as Fox News to “counterbalance” perceived liberal bias. What emerges from this “balanced,” if not fair, approach is a public sphere in which no claim is taken by viewers as intended to express truth only bias one way or another. When audiences don’t expect truth, they may not hold candidates responsible for falsehoods. In the current presidential campaigns, numerous false assertions have been made with little political cost. In most philosophical and common sense understandings of communication, listeners trust speakers to be intending to speak the truth. This talk will consider how communication in the public sphere functions when truthfulness and trust have broken down.... Read more about Communication in a Post Truth Age of Politics
Nicholas J. Cull, Professor of Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California 
Esraa Abdel Fattah, Egyptian Democratic Academy; Ben Moses, Director; Will Dobson, Slate Magazine, and Tarek Masoud, HKS
Ellis Goldberg, Professor of Political Science, University of Washington
Daniel Kreiss, Assistant Professor, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, UNC-Chapel Hill
Peter Erben, International Foundation for Electoral Systems
Panel Discussion & Lunch
Phineas Baxandall, MASSPIRG; Chuck Collins, Institute for Policy Studies; Archon Fung, HKS
Christopher Robichaud, Harvard Kennedy School