A hub for research, insights, and analysis from across Harvard University, addressing critical issues of democracy and self-government in the United States and around the world
Book
In Race/Class Conflict and Urban Financial Threat, political scientist Jennifer L. Hochschild analyzes key policies in four major U.S. cities to explore when race and class influence urban politics, when they don’t, and what other factors can drive city policy decisions.
Occasional Paper
Democracy movements are struggling to challenge autocratic governments, partly due to the changing technology landscape. This report summarizes a December 2024 workshop on the specific issue of AI adoption within democracy movements and offers some key recommendations.
This paper examines enduring features of the American federal judiciary that systematically favor conservative political and policy outcomes. By situating the United States within a comparative context, the authors argue that these structural aspects of the judiciary contribute to a consistent ideological bias toward conservatism in legal decisions.
According to new research from Maya Sen and her co-authors, as political survey questions become more complex, people are more likely to choose the first options on a list, especially if they have less knowledge and the question is long—making it better for researchers to keep questions short rather than trying to simplify the wording.
Article
This paper finds that mayoral partisanship has little causal effect on crime, policing, or arrest rates in U.S. cities, though it may modestly influence the racial composition of arrests.
Book
Empowering Affected Interests explores the radical implications of the All-Affected Principle in a globalized world, bringing together leading theorists to examine how democracy might be reimagined to address cross-border interdependence on issues like immigration, climate change, and labor markets.
Book
When Democracy Breaks aims to deepen our understanding of what separates democratic resilience from democratic fragility by focusing on the latter.
Book
In Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?, Alexander Keyssar explores the institution’s origins and persistent survival despite widespread public opposition, showing how partisan interests and constitutional barriers have repeatedly derailed reform.