Commentary
How Maduro’s Dictatorship Plans to Survive
Even with Nicolás Maduro gone, the fight for Venezuela’s future is far from over. Freddy Guevara warns that Maduro’s successors are more interested in regime survival than democratic reform.
News and Analysis
Read the latest news, commentary, and analysis from the Ash Center.
Newest
Feature
In Denver, a Model for Jail-Based Voting
Across the United States, hundreds of thousands of people in jail retain their right to vote while being held in pretrial detention, having not been convicted of a crime.
Commentary
What is Kamala Harris’s Story and Why Does it Matter So Much?
“In public life, if you don’t claim authorship of your own story, others will claim it for you.”
Commentary
The Real Numbers: Tracking Crowd Sizes at Presidential Rallies
This post uses the Crowd Counting Consortium’s data on U.S. protest activity since 2017 to estimate and compare the average size of the crowds at political rallies featuring Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and, since late July 2024, Kamala Harris.
Q+A
Exiled Venezuelan opposition leader on the election, the protests, and the future of the country
HKS research fellow Freddy Guevara MC/MPA 2024 remains optimistic about a democratic transition and that the July election was the beginning of the end for the Maduro regime.
Feature
Political Violence in America: Causes, Consequences, and Countermeasures
In the wake of this most recent incident, the Ash Center convened a panel of experts to discuss Americans’ attitudes toward political violence and explore strategies for counteracting and de-escalating future violent acts to prevent them from becoming an accepted social norm.
Commentary
Grassroots efforts to increase voting are gaining momentum in these states, even as other states make voting harder
Tova Wang argues that the past two years have also been groundbreaking in terms of advancing the right to vote.
Podcast
Episode 5: Independent Protest Journalism
Host Jay Ulfelder sits down with journalists Talia Jane, Raven, and Sean Beckner-Carmitchel to discuss the impact of independent journalism on protest activity and social movements.
Commentary
Arrest student protesters, wait or negotiate? Colleges can use ‘ladder of harm’ to determine appropriate response to Gaza protests on campus
In his latest article for The Conversation, Archon Fung presents two key questions at the heart of these debates: Should campuses allow civil disobedience, suppress dissent, or seek peaceful solutions? And when, if ever, should police force be used against protests?
Podcast
Episode Four: The Movement to Stop Cop City
Host Jay Ulfelder sits down with Joseph Brown, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Boston, to discuss a mass mobilization in Atlanta to stop a new a police training center amid environmental and community rights concerns.