At this moment, the attention of the country is sharply focused on the state of Georgia. Just two months after a breathtakingly narrow election, one in which the mechanisms of democracy and the performance of the officials who administered it were severely tested, the voters of Georgia will make another high-stakes decision on January 5. While the candidates and the media are mostly focused on who will win the two Senate runoff races, there is another crucial set of dynamics at work about the voting process itself. We want to look at what efforts are taking place to...
As the smoke (slowly) clears from the 2020 elections, advocates for full participation and democracy reform are charting a path forward. In Congress and in state legislatures, the lessons of 2020 and the new contours of politics will shape efforts going forward. What is the terrain reformers will confront, what are the reforms being proposed, and what are the prospects for success, short term and long term? The Ash Center is pleased to pose these questions to four leading democracy advocates and election experts:... Read more about Looking Forward: The Paths and Prospects for Democracy Reform
With a population of 51 million people, South Korea is reporting just over 30,000 cases of COVID-19, making it a major success story in the fight against the pandemic. Yong-Kyun Kim MC/MPA '08, the director-general of South Korea’s National Disaster and Safety Control Center, will join Arnold Howitt, faculty co-director of the HKS Program on Crisis Leadership (PCL), to discuss the country’s overall response to COVID-19, its successes, and the challenges it has encountered.
This final session is titled, "China and BRI: Analysis and Implications" and will feature Ash Center Fellow Shirley Yu.
China Study Student Group: Voices and Analysis from the Field
This study group, held on six Fridays 11am-12pm to accommodate the widest range of time zones globally, engages HKS degree students to understand China’s rise and its role in the world moving forward. Led by...
Join Archon Fung for an exploration of some possible futures of American democracy and what can be done to create a more equal and inclusive democracy. Fung is the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. His research explores policies, practices, and institutional designs that deepen the quality of democratic governance with a focus on public participation, deliberation, and transparency. He co-directs the Transparency Policy Project and leads democratic governance programs of the Ash Center for...
Join the Ash Center and Harvard University Asia Center in discussion with author Murray Hiebert, senior associate of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), about his new book Under Beijing's Shadow: Southeast Asia's China Challenge. Elina Noor,Director, Political-Security Affairs and Deputy Director, Asia Society Policy Institute, will serve as a respondent. Jay Rosengard, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, will moderate.
Democracy urgently needs repair. Constructive participation in political systems has been eroding and intense political conflict growing. Civil dialogue across political divides and confidence in the legitimacy of political institutions has declined. Societal groups remain quite unequal in their ability to shape government policy, and the dominance of organized monied interests results in policies that fail to address the needs of average citizens....
Join us on Wednesday, November 18th at 6pm ET in observance and celebration of Native American/Indigenous Peoples Heritage Month, when the Institute of Politics and Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation host a conversation between Kimberley Teehee...
Join the Ash Center and Carr Center for Human Rights for the launch of Authoritarian Police in Democracy: Contested Security in Latin America by HKS Assistant Professor Yanilda María González. Authoritarian Police in Democracy examines the persistence of authoritarian policing in Latin America to explain why police violence and malfeasance remain pervasive decades after democratization. It also examines the conditions under which reform can occur. Drawing on rich comparative analysis and evidence from Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia, the book opens up the '...
While it is way too early for a ‘retrospective’ given just how extraordinary this year’s election has been, we do now know a lot about the voting processes up to and including Election Day. The 2020 elections were a dramatic interplay of major procedural changes brought about as a result of COVID-19, multiple attempts to limit and discourage voting and a strong pushback against them, and extraordinary efforts to mobilize citizens to vote. The Ash Center is glad to bring four deeply immersed leaders in these areas to share what they saw and...
