President Barack Obama delivers a health care address to a joint session of Congress at the United States Capitol

Democratic Reform

At the Ash Center, we’re working to generate new ideas to reform our democratic institutions for the 21st century.

Lucas, Flickr, Creative Commons

Many of our most basic democratic institutions, from the Electoral College to Congress itself, were born in the eighteenth century when American democracy and America looked markedly different than today. At the Ash Center, we’re working to modernize and reform these institutions for a healthy 21st-century democracy.

As political polarization continues to test the strength of even our most bedrock political institutions, the Ash Center brings together scholars, practitioners, and policymakers from across the country to discuss how to protect and modernize our democracy.

Through working groups and convenings, case studies, and research projects, the Ash Center is working to identify reforms both large and small that will help strengthen the future of American democracy for generations to come.

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Book Talk — Governance for Urban Services: Access, Participation, Accountability and Transparency

Video

Book Talk — Governance for Urban Services: Access, Participation, Accountability and Transparency

The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation hosted a virtual book talk with Shabbir Cheema, Senior Fellow, Ash Center – and the principal author and editor of “Governance for Urban Services: Access, Participation, Accountability and Transparency” (Springer 2020). The Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Faculty Director, Jorrit de Jong, moderated.

Book Talk: We Own the Future — Democratic Socialism, American Style
Graphic with the event details

Video

Book Talk: We Own the Future — Democratic Socialism, American Style

The Ash Center hosted a discussion with Peter Dreier, co-editor of We Own the Future: Democratic Socialism—American Style. Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government, will moderate.

Can We Break Out of the Two-Party Doom Loop?

Video

Can We Break Out of the Two-Party Doom Loop?

In this talk, Drutman and Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government, discussed our two-party system and potential strategies for a critical, non-incremental move away from our dysfunctional “politics as usual.”