Democratic Governance

  • 2012 Nov 14

    Taking Our Country Back: The Crafting of Networked Politics from Howard Dean to Barack Obama

    4:10pm to 5:30pm

    Location: 

    124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge, MA

    Daniel KreissDaniel 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

  • 2012 Nov 13

    Political Stability at Risk: National Elections in Indonesia 2014 and Myanmar 2015

    4:10pm to 5:30pm

    Location: 

    124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge, MA

    Peter ErbenPeter 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

  • 2012 Nov 09

    Grassroots Democracy: How Would it Work?

    12:00pm to 1:30pm

    Location: 

    Weil Town Hall, Belfer Building, HKS

    Politician with flagsPanel Discussion & Lunch
    Co-sponsored by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University

    Event Video

    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

  • 2012 Nov 05

    Brown Bag with Ambassador Christian Dussey

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    Taubman 401, HKS

    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

  • 2012 Oct 18

    We’re Not Broke: Film Screening & Panel Discussion

    6:30pm

    Location: 

    Wiener Auditorium, Ground Floor, Taubman Building, HKS

    Movie posterPhineas 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.

  • 2012 Oct 10

    Communication in a Post Truth Age of Politics

    4:30pm

    Location: 

    Wiener Auditorium, Ground Floor, Taubman Building, HKS

    Christopher RobichaudChristopher 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

  • 2012 Sep 13

    Protecting the Vote: Suppression, Fraud, and the Future of Voter ID Laws

    6:00pm

    Location: 

    JFK Jr. Forum, Littauer Building, Harvard Kennedy School

    Tova Andrea WangAbout the Seminar
    A panel conversation with:

    Jennie Bowser
    Senior Fellow, National Conference of State Legislatures

    John Fund
    Senior Editor, The American Spectator

    Alex Keyssar
    Matthew W. Stirling Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy, HKS

    Tova Wang
    Senior Democracy Fellow, Demos; Fellow, The Century Foundation

    Trey Grayson (Moderator)
    Director, Institute of Politics... Read more about Protecting the Vote: Suppression, Fraud, and the Future of Voter ID Laws

  • 2012 Apr 17

    Deleterious Me: Whole Genome Sequencing, 23andMe, and the Crowd-Sourced Health Care Revolution

    5:00pm to 7:00pm

    Location: 

    Emerson Hall, Room 105

    Anne Wojcicki with panel discussion by Archon Fung, Jeremy Greene, Sanford Kwinter, and Jonathan Zittrain
    Moderated by Sheila Jasanoff

    Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Center for the Environment, the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. More>>

    About the Science and Democracy Lecture Series
    Once a semester, the STS Program, with co-sponsorship from other local institutions, hosts an installation in its Science and Democracy Lecture Series. The series aims to spark lively, university-wide discussion of the place and meaning of science and technology, broadly conceived, in democratic societies. We hope to explore both the promised benefits of our era’s most salient scientific and technological breakthroughs and the potentially harmful consequences of developments that are inadequately understood, debated, or managed by politicians, institutions, and lay publics.... Read more about Deleterious Me: Whole Genome Sequencing, 23andMe, and the Crowd-Sourced Health Care Revolution

  • 2012 Apr 17

    Harvard in the Delta: Reflecting on Five Years of the Community Development Project

    4:10pm to 5:30pm

    Location: 

    124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Cambridge, MA

    Carolyn McAdams, Mayor, Greenwood, MS; Carl Allen, MPP 2010; and James Solomon, MPP 2012

    About the Seminar
    Since 2008, HKS students have engaged the residents of Baptist Town, a rural community in Greenwood, MS, in local community development efforts. The all student-led Community Development Project has grown in unexpected directions but always offered unique service-learning opportunities along the way. At this seminar, the panel will address topics and themes including Baptist Town’s forthcoming revitalization plan, a crowd-sourced grant program supported by Dreamworks Pictures (who filmed part of The Help in Baptist Town), the intersection between Harvard students and local politics, and what the future holds for CDP.... Read more about Harvard in the Delta: Reflecting on Five Years of the Community Development Project

  • 2012 Apr 17

    Community-Powered Disaster Recovery: A Brownbag Presentation by Recovers.Org

    12:00pm

    Location: 

    Taubman 301, Harvard Kennedy School

    Caitria O’Neill and Morgan O’Neill, Recovers.Org

    About the Seminar
    Recovers.Org provides free software and support to recovering areas immediately after a disaster. In this brownbag presentation, the organization’s co-founders will discuss how the services Recovers.Org provides allows towns to capture the goodwill of people post-disaster – and turn it into action – amidst the chaos that frequently characterizes early relief and recovery efforts. They will speak about their motivations for creating the organization – and the successes and challenges they’ve experienced since Recovers.Org launched.... Read more about Community-Powered Disaster Recovery: A Brownbag Presentation by Recovers.Org

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