Danielle Allen
Professor of Public Policy, James Bryant Conant University Professor
Democratic Reform
At the Ash Center, we’re working to generate new ideas to reform our democratic institutions for the 21st century.
Related Programs
Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation, Reimagining Democracy Program
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.
Meet the Experts
Justin de Benedictis-Kessner
Associate Professor of Public Policy
Archon Fung
Director, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation;
Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government
Larry Lessig
Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership
Stephen Richer
Senior Practice Fellow in American Democracy, February - November 2025
Jane Mansbridge
Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values Emerita
Tarek Masoud
Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Governance
Liz McKenna
Assistant Professor of Public Policy
Pippa Norris
Paul F. McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics
Ariel Procaccia
Alfred and Rebecca Lin Professor of Computer Science
Benjamin Schneer
Associate Professor of Public Policy
David Weil
Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School
Daniel Ziblatt
Eaton Professor of the Science of Government
The Latest News, Research, and Resources
Case Study
Jail-Based Voting in the District of Columbia: A Case Study
Media Release
New research outlines novel partisan solution to partisan gerrymandering
In a new paper in Political Analysis, Ben Schneer, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, alongside co-authors Maxwell Palmer, Associate Professor, Boston University; and Kevin DeLuca, Assistant Professor, Yale University; present a new method for drawing legislative boundaries, the Define–Combine Procedure.
Commentary
Nonwhite people are drastically underrepresented in local government
Elected representatives in government don’t always look like the people they serve.
Q+A
Charting a new course for the future of American conservatism
As divisions within the GOP were on vivid display last month during the tumult over the US House Speaker’s gavel, the Kennedy School’s Steve Goldsmith and UT-Austin’s Ryan Streeter ask whether conservatives should embrace a more aspirational, ideas-driven future?
Video
Book Talk – When Democracy Breaks
The Ash Center invites you to watch a book talk with contributors to When Democracy Breaks (Oxford, 2023), a new edited volume intended to deepen our understanding of what separates democratic resilience from democratic fragility — by focusing on the latter.
Media Release
In new discussion paper, Stephen Goldsmith and Ryan Streeter lay out a case for a new, more aspirational conservatism
In a recently published discussion paper from the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School, Stephen Goldsmith and Ryan Streeter propose a new ideological framework for the conservative movement in the United States centered around aspiration, opportunity, and personal responsibility to help drive upward mobility.
Commentary
Re-imagining democracy for the 21st century, possibly without the trappings of the 18th century
Imagine that we’ve all – all of us, all of society – landed on some alien planet, and we have to form a government: clean slate. How would we govern ourselves?
Feature
How will the Voting Rights Act ruling impact redistricting?
According to Kennedy School’s Benjamin Schneer, the decision that an Alabama congressional map illegally weakened the power of Black voters has implications beyond the southern state’s borders.
Feature
Is democracy in decline? Kennedy School professors voice optimism and concerns.
From polarization to populism, democracy is facing off against formidable foes and we need big ideas to save it says expert panel.
Q+A
Claims against nonpartisan voter record system are baseless says former West Virginia Secretary of State
Natalie Tennant discusses the impact of states leaving the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a resource for maintaining accurate voter records across state lines
Q+A
Does France’s pension reform controversy highlight the need for deliberative democracy?
French President Emmanuel Macron’s end run around parliament may be legally sound, but Ash Center Democracy Fellow Yves Sintomer argues the move was markedly anti-democratic.
Feature
Bruce Schneier Wants to Recreate Democracy
Arguing that American democracy has been hacked, the computer security expert doesn’t want to just fiddle on the margins when it comes to re-envisioning what a new 21st-century American democracy should look like.
Commentary
As others study how democracy dies, Tarek Masoud studies how it can survive
The Democracy in Hard Places program has grown from an obsession with how countries that lack democracy can get it and keep it.
Feature
Democracy on the Precipice?
Archon Fung on the threats to American democracy and what we can do about it.
Video
Democracy on the Precipice?
On Thursday, March 9, 2023, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation Director Archon Fung, Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, spoke to Kennedy School community members about threats to American democracy and how we can overcome them.